Media Center

Components

• Antec New Solution Series NSK2400 Mini Tower Case (Silver) Retail (380W power supply)
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe Processor 1.86GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 2MB Cache Retail
• Corsair TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB DDR2-675 XMS2-5400 Xtreme Performance Memory w/Black Heat Spreader Retail
• MSI 945GCM5-F Intel Core 2 Duo (Desktop) Socket 775 1066 MHz PC2-5400 (DDR2-667) mATX Motherboard Retail
• EVGA e-GeForce 7600 GS (256-P2-N549-TX)
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500 MCE
• Western Digital Caviar SE16 (750GB OEM)
• SAMSUNG SH-S203N 20X SATA DVD Burner Black Drive Bulk
• Vista Ultimate

Notes

• Assembled with no problem. Well, I was frightened during the attachment of the Intel heatsink / fan. I thought that I was going to snap the mobo into two pieces. Started up with zero problems at all, which I assume is a credit to modern mobo architecture.
• Divx and Xvid codecs seem to get installed somewhere between BeyondTV 4.4 and 4.7

Problems

• I initially installed Vista Home Premium. This was a big mistake because it doesn't have Remote Desktop.
• Live TV is not at the quality that I would prefer. Channels 2-5 come in great, but the other channels seem to experience signal interference. I'm sure that I'll be able to resolve this problem in the future.
• Haven't experienced any heat-related problems yet, but it is a concern for the summer months. The media center sits in my entertainment center behind a glass door. The only ventilation is through a 1.5" by 6" slit in the back through which wires are run.
  

Conclusion
I'm really happy that I built this and wish that I had done months ago.