I need suggestions for turning a spare PC into a multimedia PC

[javi0084]

My cousin gave me a PC with a dead HDD (he didn't want to buy a new one) this past weekend. It's a decent PC, Pentium 4 processor and 512MB RAM. I want to turn it into a multimedia PC to hook up to my 42" EDTV. I plan on buying a couple of 750GB HDDs from newegg but I will also need a video card that I can hook up to the TV. Which one would you recommend? The TV can do 480p on component video and the PC has a AGP 8x slot and plenty of PCI slots. I'm looking to spend no more than $50.

Also, what is the best way to record my DVD collection to the PC? I'm going to use Ubuntu 8.04 and I'm thinking that Divx is the best choice but how would I go about doing that?

Thanks!

[paulderol]

i'm liking my gforce 7300gt, which is like 35-40 on newegg, and i think it meets your stated demands. another 512 of ram will make the playback smooth, and might only be 20-30 as well.

as far as dvd conversion, you might just rip them and read them with vlc, which can read dvd images off the hdd, but i also like thoggen, which produces ogv, which is lossy, but small, and you can change the resolutions to your preference.

[javi0084]

The only gforce 7300gt that will fit my PC is $75 but it looks like it's the best bet.

Last question, how would I record DVDs to my PC? I like VLC so I don't mind playing the DVDs using that.

[cozmicharlie]

The only gforce 7300gt that will fit my PC is $75 but it looks like it's the best bet.

Last question, how would I record DVDs to my PC? I like VLC so I don't mind playing the DVDs using that.

Do you mean - how to rip a dvd? That is record from a DVD you bought to your hard drive. If so then their are a number of packages that you can use. These are all in Synaptic

DVDRip
acidrip
avidemux
ogmrip
vobcopy

Handbrake (not in Synaptic)

Or you can use vlc - follow this tutorial (http://www.therealcaffeine.com/how-to/rip-dvd-with-vlc/)

Enjoy