New build Blu Ray

Do you live near a MicroCenter? What kind of monitors/screens are you using? Do you play games? How about a mouse and keyboard?

Just so you know, $1200 is a ton of money for a Home Theater PC. Do you have cable, and if so, do you want to record like TIVO, only better and cheaper? You could spend an extra $400 on that and still get an adequate HTPC.

Do you need an operating system? Would you consider using a LINUX OS, and and then going with Myth TV?

Also, is it OK to build in a larger case? Novice builders tend to get frustrated building in a small Home Theater case.

Oh, one more thing, take a look at these selelctions, and vote for the one you like:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/296091-31-best-config...

You could add the Ceton TIVO option to any one of these builds and still beat your budget by $100.

Don't really want a TV system.
Really just a fast computer that can download to blu ray,have a great HD card,USB 3 for things to come
and available space for other cards.
We have an old Dell p4,
It just seems you could have fun and rewards from building your own computer.
Would like to play burned blu ray on our Pannasonic
We do a lot of online things and we are tired of waiting forever.
And it would be good to share the process with my son.
You folks here really seem to know your stuff and are not scammers.
Also would to use Newegg for most or all parts.

Thanks
Jim