[mythtv-users] mythtv 0.24.2 and va-api with mplayer

[gacmb5 gacmb5]

I'm very happy with my current mythtv system (back and front end)
which runs on an atom + ion board (low power, HD capable). Because
there are no atom ion boards with 2 or more pci slots (as far as I
know) I had to use 3 external USB tuners which (to my opinion) consume
to much power.
I'm now thinking about buying an i3 (2100T) board with 3 pci slots and
under clock the system. The 2100T is very efficient (speed step), and
the Intel Z68 chipsets can provide hardware decoding (va-api).
MythTV 0.25 should support this but I'm not convinced it will (and I
don't want to wait to long).

There are mplayer builds with vaapi support, so how about using MythTv
(0.24 or 0.25) and configure the frontend to use mplayer with va-api
support?
Why should I use the internal mythtv player? Will OSD work with an
external player? What will I be missing if use an external player vs
the build in player?

Thanks...