Updated - September 2007
The popularity of including a personal computer in a home theater setup has grown over the past several years. The first generation of Home Theater PCs (HT-PCs) were essentially a multimedia enabled PCs outfitted with a DVD-ROM drive and perhaps a TV tuner. However with the widespread availability of HDTVs today's HT-PCs should be enabled with the features to support high definition home theaters and include one of the new high definition optical drives (i.e., either HD-DVD or Blu-ray Disc), and surround sound audio card, and a high quality video graphics card capable of providing an output via a HDMI connector with support for the HDTV video resolutions of 720p, 1080i and 1080p. A HT-PC to be complete should also include a HDTV tuner card with digital video recorder (DVR) software..
You can either purchase a multi-media PC from one of the major PC manufacturers with upgrades for the desired capabilities, build your own HT-PC from scratch or upgrade a recent vintage PC to provide the required features.
If your are building a new HT-PC or upgrading an existing recent vintage PC the following link provides information on suitable hardware and software: Click Here