I'm considering setting up a MythTV DVR using an old box I've got kicking around, and I'm wondering if it's up to the task. It's an old Dell Precision 330, 1.4GHz P4, 400MHz FSB with a 300GB IDE HD and only 512MB of RAM; unfortunately it's Rambus RAM so it'd be more costly than the computer itself is worth to upgrade this.
If I bought reasonable PCI video capture and display cards, I'm assuming that they would do most of the heavy lifting, so would the 512MB RAM matter?
Also, could anyone with MythTV experience suggest MythTV-compatible PCI capture and display cards (or a combination card if a plain-old PCI one exists) that would work well for this setup? I'm looking to be able to just plug it in between the cable box and the TV in as simple a fashion as possible.
**Edit: ** I should clarify that I just want standard-def TV/DVR -- no HD necessary.
Thanks very much for your input.