Something you might want to consider is your CPU. There are no Linux graphics drivers that will allow video decoding on the chip (Nvidia: Purevideo and ATI: UVD). This means that all the decoding must be done on the processor. I had a P4 3.0GHz and it wouldn't play 720p videos at all. Forget about it. My Core 2 Duo @ 2.0Ghz will play fine at 720p and only uses 20-30% CPU usage. Beware!