Homebrew slingbox?

The slingbox pro-hd was very nice - tried it for a few days.

However it had to be returned because of 2 issues related to the playback software.

1) Incredibly high CPU usage for high bitrate streams (6mbit+). To the point where a Core i5 laptop had trouble keeping up.

2) Lack of post processing - some obvious scaling artifacts.


I liked the idea of near-perfect HDTV streaming. What sort of software/hardware solution could be used in place of the sling?

For example, a HDTV import card + VLC streaming? Or something more sophisticated....