I take it a background thread would be something like using the background worker? I don't have any experience with it really but had a quick look on MSDN and doesn't look overly complicated.... (I know....I've just cursed myself)

When you say pre-load it, does the media player control have an option somewhere for that? I was looking for some kind of buffer option but couldn't find anything. Does one exist? Or is somekind of filestream type thing needed? I thought about adding the videos to a mediaplayer collection or adding the list of videos to a playlist but I don't actually think that would make any difference in terms of preloading. Just need some clarification really.

Thanks,