There is also some information in Linuxtv.org VDR Wiki: http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php
Thanks, I didn't know about that one. Good stuff.
Xine has superior deinterlacing filters such as TomsMoComp and Greedy2Frame, which is very important for video fluidity and quality. I have not followed Sofdevice development recently, but at least with Xine-plugin, the MPEG-2 decoding and video display is separated from VDR to the Xine process. This should prevent VDR from crashing at decoding bugs (if there are any) and you can close Xine and X without worrying about VDR.
Well, as this is a dedicated VDR box without any keyboard, mouse or normal VGA screen restarting Xine is the same as restarting the whole system. I don't have a desktop where Xine will be running and where I can just restart it, it's all on the same headless system.
Good deinterlace is of course important, especially with a projector that natively wants a progressive signal.
ATI's X drivers may give you some gray hairs, but I have heard they've gotten better in the last year or so. Your system is powerful enough to handle HDTV software decoding and deinterlacing if you get XVideo working.
Heh, you expect us to see HDTV in Finland for a few years? Of course some HDTV content is available through satellite and could be fun to play with (still need to bite the gory tools and install a dish for that)... :)
Thanks for the feedback, it was much appreciated.