Homebrew PVR, part 3

My ongoing efforts to build a really usable PVR took a couple of steps forward this weekend - The link is a previous post with a few thoughts and observations. As ever with these projects I only have stolen hours here and there and so if it is working adequately then it is a while before I get to optimise things!
Anyhow - I did the following mods:

• Replaced the barely-adequate processor - it was an AMD 1500XP and so I dropped in a 1900XP I found on eBay. Much better! No more dropped frames and/or audio sync issues. Also - the Compro card always finds the Mux when you switch channels - previously it would drop the Mux if you went between (say) the BBC channels and the ITV ones.
  
• Connected the remote power up/down connections to the Compro card - fantastic! The card has a battery-backed clock on board and so will boot the computer, make a recording and power down again and it really works. Having just got my first >£200 electricity bill I'm impressed with this! You can even use the remote control to power up and down.

My next step is to repave the machine with Media Portal - Saul (work mate) really rates it and it seems to be much more usable than XP Media Centre and supports more devices. For my own reference here is a walk-through on configuring Compro IR remote under MediaPortal.
I'm also going to replace the aged graphics card with a dual-RAMDAC one (I have an ATI 7500 doing nothing) so I can use Powerstrip to for a 720x576x50i output (although the SVideo o/p @50hz looks OK).
Wait and see!