Viewing mpg files w/ remote on old PC? WinTV2K on it

[flemingdl]

Hi folks,

Our 5+ yr old 733mhz PC w/ Win XP is now in our Rec room. It has a TV-out video card TV interface thru an old ATI Rage 128 2x vid card. It's on a wired network with our nicer PC 50' away in den which records very nice MPG files using WinTV2K. I want to play WinTV recorded mpg files on the older Rec room PC's TV. What I want:
1) At a minimum, a wireless remote that I can fast fwd and rwd thru commercials & content.
2) Even better, remote that could open a folder and allow selecting mpg files to view though not essential.

Is there a < $50 setup that would provide this for this older PC? Searching the web for remote controls mostly brings PC Remote tools, not video viewing remotes(!).

I'll add that I bought WinTV2K after being assured it would work OK on the old 733mhz PC but it slows PC functions down too much and I tried lots of tweaks (WinTV pic quality on TV is superb tho) . Wonder if a different 2x vid card would help that PC handle WinTV2k?

Thanks Lots!

Don Fleming
Bellevue Wa.

[Krispy Kritter]

The biggest upgrade for the older pc, especially running XP, would be memory. 512 would be ideal. Also, some TV software by default buffers to the HD (TIVO like function to pause live TV). However, on older pc's this causes poor performance, disabling the buffer/TIVO option greatly increases usability.