linux playback-from-network box

i'm interested in building a slimline linux box for the lounge which would use the tv as a screen. it'd allow my housemates and me to watch movies stored on our computers on the tv. connecting it to the network would be no problem and i'm sure i can figure out what kind of video card i need to connect it to the tv. the thing i'm not sure on is the spec required. i obviously want to spend as little money as possible. how much beef will the processor need to stream xvid/divx over the network and play them? i'd think it'd need less beef than if it was running windows, but that's just speculation. any ideas? thanks a lot

hmm, get 3Ghz range to any of 64 bit Processor available. don't use Pentium 2 or 3, it does cost less and able to play most of DivX/XviD movies, but when everything goes HD, it won't sufficient anymore. also, with faster processor, you would be able to use more additional post processing filter for playback.

I stream divx/xvid over the network on my HTPC which is a poor little P3 800mhz. I'm sure you could do it with much less. Although it's running WinXP, I use a Windows build of MPlayer.