It always infuriates me when I go looking for video card reviews and it's benchmark after benchmark of 3D gaming performance with a one liner at the end "BTW, the card is fanless, great for HTPC use"... and that's all you get
It's a pity that matrox don't take on the HTPC crowd. They always made the best 2D PQ cards and they could focus on video PQ as they have no interest in gaming. It's sad but we're a niche market that had to use hardware from a much larger market who'd primary concern is not video playback...
I agree that for your preferred media type it's likely that you would benefit from the higher end card. Just wanted to make the point that it's a horses for courses thing for the benefit of most people (particularly new HTPC users). I hate to see people swept into hardware purchase for little or no gain.
Cheers,
Arkay.