Hey-o. I've been out of the loop as a supplier, and on-site worker for comp's. So im really rough on knowledge these days, since i've changed my major when i went back last term at college. Anyhow, my current rig is XP 2000+, 2x 20 Raid stripe-0, 512meg 266 DDR, GF3, MSI K7T266a mobo. The system has been pretty failthful to me, and am happy with it.
Couple months ago, i jumped onto the DVD burning bandwagon. And for a while its been good. But DVD9 dvd's are becoming more and more common these days, and even the greatest of stripping you still need to do some CCE downsampling. Those not familiar with CCE, its a Mpeg1/2 encoder, that is very intensive, but produce the best quality for your source (can make a 4gig dvd movie still look like its 7-8 gig original). Usually, in my quality settings, i do a 4 or 5 pass CCE "Robshot" DVD downsample. This poses a problem, the bitrate being anywhere from 0 to 9800 Mbits/s is very taxing on a system. Took a 5 pass encode 15 hours to process. I dont really care with the fact it took that long, its that i couldnt utilize my comp during this process. My backup comp is no longer a choice, and its backup, is a old P3 450, which is totally un-acceptable for CCE encoding - which would take it eternity. Im looking at getting another cheap, barebones rig, that can perform similar to my current machine, so it can sit in the corner and do the DVD stuff for me and whatever else i want it to. Cuz these 15 hour shifts without using a comp is really killing me. I cant use it for any of my other many pratical purposes.
So im looking at something like a:
-P4 1.8a
-256 DDR (at the least, probably 512 later when i get more money).

should point out im no longer working, since im fulltime student. So funds are limited. Im looking for suggestions, on motherboards, that are hopefully onboard video, that i can help squeeze the CPU for a few more mhz (overclock good). But be affordable as possible. Other suggestions are welcome. And if you find any deals worth mentioning please let me know in here. Of course, i should point out to the un-aware. I am a canuck, so money is even more of an issue.

All the other hardware i've gotten taken care of.

But find a barebone bundle thats good even in Canuck currency (im looking for under 450$ canadian total, that includes the case, the cpu, the mobo and the ram - yah and pigs fly over germany).

I was considering doing this as a peice by peice assembly. But my DVD needs cant warrant that slow of delay.

Any help or suggetsions would be great. Thanks.

Oddly enough I have a spare 1.4 Tbird cpu sitting on my desk. But i dont want to use it. Before the comp that used to run it had difficulties with CCE (this was later fixed with an unofficial CRC patch for CCE - which im having hard times locating).
Besides, I want to play with some intel stuff this time around. Im probably going to get rid of the Tbird, or give it to a few clients i have lying around.

I can't really assist in the hardware side, but I wouldn't mind giving CCE a go.. any chance you can hook me up?