is quite usable. Output is VGA (not DVI), but composite/s-video output is crap (but who cares, if the goal is HDTV). Certainly does not handle HDTV, but the newer could do that.
Let's hope that David Airlie manages to get around implementing open source XvMC support for radeons. That would bring cpu usage for hdtv playback down a bit.
Actually my opinion about XvMC is that you don't want to use that on 1080i HDTV signal. This is because XvMC doesn't support deinterlacing and you want deinterlaced signal, or you have combing in your picture. I've tested this with Euro1080, Nvidia XvMC, DVI-out and Sony projector on progressive frame format. Maybe Sony's deinterlacer could improve the picture but due Nvidia driver timing problem I cannot confirm this.
This because XvMC 'captures' MPEG data before it can be deinterlaced by host CPU. And I am not aware of HW/GPU deinterlacers other than Nvidia 6600/6800 with purevideo, but purevideo support is Windows only AFAIK.
Best regards, Jori