Suggestions needed

[sydkahn]

I had a sweet setup until the lightning strike. A shuttle system, amd64, 512meg, 300gig, e.t.c... quite and worked great.

My only gripe was that the best computer in the house was sitting in the living room and not being used up to its potential. So after the lightning strike i got one of the tivo thingies from the cable company and it solved the other gripe, couldn't record the premium chanels. That had its own problems - small recording capacity.

Insurance bought me a dual core HP that came installed with Windows ME. I toyed with making it a media server and using the XBOX as an link to the main computer. Totally frustrated with that solution - the xbox part had almost no codec support and would only play a few files. To rip a dvd backup I had to use an inefficient CODEC to be compatible.

To build a video jukebox is my goal, use the system upstairs and some huge hard drives for the library, and tv show recording, and just a minimal system in the living room a client to the beast.

What I need to know is - what is the minimum system i need to run tv-link and keep the dual core pc up in the computer room where it belongs.

I have an old athalon 1meg that i could gussy up with the cheapest video card that will do the job. Suggestions on the video card needed would be appreciated.

I know i need the Beyond link software - do I need Beyiond media also. I have beyond tv and a firefly now.