replaced the power supply, installed a quad core processor and maxed it out with ddr (8 gig of ram)
and holy crap that thing is fast
installed a wintv pci card and ran terminal lspci -tv (to display all pci cards)
apt-get libdvdcss -pkg and libdvb -pkg, once those completed i downloaded the tvtime app from the software centre
lo and behold works flawlessly with both tvtime and flv media player.

now the wifey can watch her soaps on the pc and copy her vhs home movies to dvd (many of those home movies are irreplaceable)

the only pictures she has of her mom and dad (both deceased a long time ago)