Help w/ making a computer to add to home entertainment system

[Joemonkey]

I have a bunch of extra parts laying around, and figure a TV out card is probably all i need to make this feasible. What i would like to do is have a computer out in my living room that i could use to play MP3's through my home stereo, and watch divx on my TV.

Would a Celeron 600 w/ 128 megs of RAM be enough for this? I have an old mpeg decoder card with TV out (came with my OLD ass creative dxr2 DVD rom drive), and was hoping to use it's TV out to watch stuff on, and i have a stereo plug -> RCA plugs cable. I figured i would throw a NIC in there and just run it through VNC or some other remote desktop program.

My questions are:

would that old mpeg decoder card work for TV out? if not, what would be the cheapest thing i could get that would?

is a celly 600 fast enough for this?

what am i forgetting about? i feel like i'm making this way easier than i think it should be...

So, gonna put these together and help me figure out why it won't work


celeron 600
128 megs of ram
mpeg decoder card for tv out
sound card
big HDD
NIC for remote desktop purposes

what am i leaving out?

 

[Blurry]

The Celeron with 128megs of RAM is plenty. The old MpeG decoder would work, but quality would suck. I suggest you go to Newegg.com and pick up a Radeon 7000 VE for $45 (Ok 3D gaming, excellent 2D, and excellent TV-OUT) Or just go with any RAGE 128 Chipsets with TV-OUT. ATI is known for high quality TV-OUT. And no, you aren't forgetting anything else.

 

[Superwormy]

You MAY BE forgettign something, namely, MOST MPEG2 cards (all the Hollywood cards and most Creative Labs cards...) will ONLY OUTPUT MPEG 2 VIDEO TO THEIR TV OUT. Which means you wouldn't be able to output DivX with them :-(

 

[DaveSimmons]

<< will ONLY OUTPUT MPEG 2 VIDEO TO THEIR TV OUT. Which means you wouldn't be able to output DivX with them :-( >>

...or be able to see your desktop to control WinAmp (or whatever). But with a remote desktop app this is less important.

Everyone in the world seems to agree that ATI cards have the best TV-out, so take Blurry's advice and get the cheap Radeon. It's actually better for this than a faster model because it's quieter (no fan).