This is what i have:
antec v2 black chassis
asus m3n78 motherboard
amd am2 5000 CPU
2GB RAM
80+250GB HDD
Compro Videomate t500F tv-card
Samsung 18X DVD-RW
Antec v2 case: Looks great, like an amp, adequate cooling and sufficient silence considering the AMD fan singing. screen is buggy and looks awful anyway. The built in IR is buggy.
Asus Motherboard: Good stuff, Plays everything great, HDMi out is a plus, and on-board graphics handles HD content well. Havent tested it with Blu-Ray content. You are limited to only using 1 digital Video output (so either HDMi or DVI) and 1 Analog simultaneously. Audio quality is acceptable. The standard graphics drivers are hopeless, but Nvidia latest drivers solved issues.
Thus far i've ripped while playing HD content with no problems. GF's mother just watched all three Godfather's on sunday with no hassles. The tv-card worked fine at first, but became buggy last week. i havent had time to check and see what the issue was. I would like to have taken a tv-card with more inputs for greater versatility, taking into account what outputs you have from the devices you wish to record from, but otherwise it was doing a good job. Recording depends largely on what quality you want to record and when you mean 'pvr', do you mean two channels simultaneously. Also do you want to use the tv card as a tuner or just as a recorder? You also want to get a tv-card with a built in encoder to maybe relieve stress off your CPU if you not going big.
I used a slower DVD-RW to minimize spin speed and thus noise levels.
I use 2 hard drives, so i can record tv to the one HDD and watch a movie off the other. Besides, i just like keeping my OS separate from other content.
As far as case goes, in retrospect i think a fancy LCD is gimmicky and would probably save the $ and invest in a nice Logitech or MS remote keyboard with an on-board touchpad so i can control things better from the couch.
hope this helps
