Looking for an inexpensive media player

[ddrueding]

I'm looking for a computer that will run in the living room and play XviD and MP3 files to the TV and stereo. Is XBoX still the way to go? I've noticed that my roommates older laptop stresses while playing the movies, so some CPU power is required. It won't be storing anything, so a large hard drive isn't required. Odds are I'll be running WinXP MCE as I'm still several steps shy of a linux NooB.

Hardware recomendations? Are any onboard video solutions capable of dishing out a good S-Video signal? I presume that the Via CPU solutions don't have the horsepower? I don't have surround sound at the moment, so onboard audio should be fine, but a free PCI slot would give me piece of mind.

Thanks.

 

[P5-133XL]

Have you considered a simple ATI All-In-Wonder video card. It is much cheaper than going the WinXP MCE route.

 

[blakerwry]

I imagine Merc's comments will be good here.

I have a shuttle box in my living room and an all in wonder card w/ ATi remote. The ATi software is actually lacking in several respects. The best Windows software I found was snapstream. It is not free, but it looks to be worth the money being charged. -I ran the trial and liked it very much, I just haven't gotten around to purchasing it yet.

To store my media I have a ~500Gb RAID 5 array that can be accessed via SMB.