Video card suggestions

In addition I should mention the TV is S-video only

What are your system specs, screen res., clock speed. etc. You can use programs like CPU-Z to determine these. Are you planning on HD? Probably not right because I doubt a P3 can handle, it. Hehe it might even bottleneck some cards.

EVGA PCI 6200 - 45.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

This card will be all you need to output to a s-video tv.

Hewlett Packard Pavillion 6730 600mHz 256mb pc100 ram
OS - not sure what I will use linux or winxp
It's funny but that was the one I was looking at earlier [EVGA]
No HD is out of the ? right now. My TV is not HD altho it is a recent model [RCA -2 yrs old] and does have an S-Video outlet on it.
However, I guess my worry is that if I buy too powerful a card it might not work properly on this OLD machine.
My hope is to just load an OS and use TV as monitor and play the 'movies' thru vlc media player.

Yep. That machine is really old, and is 600Mhz the core speed of the CPU? Plus it barely meets the minimum for DVD playback. Theres no need for a stronger card.

yes 600mHz is the core speed.
perhaps it would be better to setup a newer mobo.
I have a P4 asus P4S533-MX . I would need to get a cpu and some ram for it
but it might be a better choice for this project?
cpu would be 2.4 - 3.0 mhz and ram would be up to 2 g ram.

Best thing is too ditch the old computer and build new one for real cheap. There you can even get a cpu that supports HDMI and HD. Here is a suggestion.

ECS BLACK SERIES A780GM-A AM2+/AM2 - 60.00 After MiR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz - 56.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 - 28.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Antec earthwatts EA430 430W - 55.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASUS EAH3450/HTP/256M Radeon HD 3450 - 34.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

^ You essentially don't need to upgrade the graphics on the motherboard, but you need s-video out.

Case, HDD. so on and accessories are up to you. Just a example of what a new build would be.

Unfortunately [lol] its just too easy/cheap to buy/build a new computer these days.

I already have 2 running computers and if I build another I really shud wait until next gen stuff, how ever It is going to be next to 0$ to get the cpu, fan and agp video for the P4S533-mx. It is not that old [way newer than P3]. I have the local used comp guy looking for me now.

Since the tv is not HD [am also waiting for next gen] I will go this way until all this technology catches up.
thank YOu AMK880 for your helpful suggestions