GideonTech has an interesting article on what it takes to put together your own Home Theater PC. Some major PC manufactures are going this route in offering a lower-cost PC that basically functions as an MP3 jukebox, TIVO-type recorder, TV tuner and so forth. It is really not that hard to do and is now a lot easier than it was a few years ago when $$-per-gig of storage was many times more expensive than it is today and the cost of specialized TV-friendly hardware was also high. I put together one 2 years ago with ATI's Radeon All-in-Wonder card, a few SCSI drives, wireless inputter's and a Soundblaster, but without the convenience of a remote control for the TIVO functions and a noise level a tad to high to enjoy quiet scenes in a movie, I decided to scrap it and wait a few years until I could afford a TIVO or build another.

This article has licked some of those problems and limitations and provides some good tips on how you can put one together. The water-cooling solution solves some of the noise problem, but this may be beyond what a casual hobbyist might want to spend or put together. Now if they can make an HTPC double as an attractive aquarium or one of those Zen rock sculptures, it might be cool!