Crematory

For best performance, connect your LCD to your chosen PIC in 8-bit Data mode, and use a PIC with a hardware USART onboard. You can pick up byte at a time from the receive register and immediately output to LCD. The PICs DATASHEET gives explicit instructions on how to drive the USART. I would not use HSERIN, and certainly not any of the software options like SERIN or SERIN2 etc. Since the timing is not critical for anything other than the USART, pick a Baudrate friendly xtal (like 22.1184MHz or 11.0592MHz) that gives zero errors at the popular baudrates. You should easily handle at least 56kb using this method (not that your LCD would be able to sensibly display that fast - it'll handle it, you just won't see it!).

Melanie

PS. I've mentioned before I don't do off-list requests.