Multimedia support

["Doughty, Michael" <Doughty_Michael@example.com>]

Ok. I am trying to ditch that horrible leach of Windows from my system,
but currently it is doing two things for me, that it does quite well:  
1)  Allow me to use two outputs from my soundcard for music (mp3,
cd) playback.  This is nice for my 4.1 surround system.
2)  Plays quite nicely with my Hauppage WinTV card.

Now I know that I can get the Hauppage working under linux (don't know
about freebsd yet, which is what I recently installed), but the support for
the 2.2.16 kernel I was running was...horrendous.  I have heard a 2.4.x
kernel provides much better support, but I have not yet been able to 
check this out, and there is plenty of room for "much better" to still
suck.  

Now, I could figure this part out on my own, but I want both, and so I 
come here hoping someone has some experience with this and a 
few suggestions on how to get both the TV and the surround sound.
I have seen brief discussions on various sound server implementations
and know that certain members have strong opinions on them.  

So, I ask, does anyone have recommendations on how to get the above
to work well together?  Or how to get one of them to work well.

As for my current setup (which I am quite willing to change)
Sorry for vagueness, not actually at the computer right now,
and it is a recent install, done with little sleep.
FreeBSD 4.3
GNOME (1.2.x I think) / Enlightenment (0.15.x?)  
esd(no clue what version, latest release I presume)

Fixed part of the setup:
CreativeLabs SoundBlaster Live! Value
Hauppage WinTV PCI
4.1 surround sound compatible speaker system.

Everything else is fairly basic.

Sorry, that was really long, but I appreciate any answers / suggestions /
prejudices you can throw my way.

Michael Doughty