Cost: You can build a high-end . But any modern computer--even a netbook or a nettop mini-PC with the right hardware--could cost you as little as $350, and if you're able to simply repurpose an old machine, your cost could be effectively nothing.

Advantages: A home theater PC is extremely flexible. You can use your computer to play downloaded or streamed video, screen home movies, access shared video from your network, play DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and play PC games on your HDTV. And the cost is hard to beat--all you need is the electricity to power your PC and a broadband Internet connection, which you're already paying for anyway.

Disadvantages: PCs are complicated. If you want to watch a TV show, you need to power the computer up, wait for Windows to boot, and then use a wireless keyboard to navigate to the show. It's not nearly as spontaneous or as instantly gratifying as simply pressing the power button on a remote. And you have to deal with the additional hassle of maintaining another computer--including such matters as security, software updates, broken components, hardware upgrades, and so on.

You must also consider content limitations: For now, at least, you can't get much live TV (news and sports), so you would still need an antenna or cable-TV subscription for that.

Advanced tips: If you want to minimize the PC-ness of the experience, pair your home theater PC up with a decent media-center application, such as the aformentioned XBMC or Windows Media Center (which is built into Windows 7), and an advanced remote control like the , which has a built-in keypad and trackball instead of a keyboard and mouse. Also, you can plug an RSS feed of the shows you're watching into a BitTorrent client to automatically download new episodes as they come out.