Cheap media centre

[Timelord]

HI

I was given a P3 1Ghz cpu along with a MSI Micro Star 815EM Pro board (onboard video, sound & lan) and 2 x 256Mb PC133 ram. http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...5&maincat_no=1

I was going to put it together with a 350w PSU that I have and use it as a file server but got to thinking it may serve better as a Media Centre Is the 4x onboard video good enough to run TV / Dvd / Recording or would it be too choppy, the other easiest option would be be a PCI card if I can still find a decent one or should I just stick with the file server?

Edit:

I am not sure if this system will support large drives?

thank you!

[Redwight]

A 1 Gig processor is the minimum spec for DVD playback, with a properly set up tuner recording is possible and live TV is a maybe. I've gotten an 80GB IDE drive into one so that shouldn't be a problem.
Most tuner manufacturers reccomend a minimum of a 3 G processor these days but then they only run at somewhere between 4% and 20% CPU usage doing there thing so it would be an interesting experiment if nothing else; the only thing would be if it doesn't work you'd be left with a tuner in it you can't use.