htpc cpu? dual or quad?

[umakemebetter]

as you can see, thats not an HTPC case, its just a cheap minitower (which happens to actually be of good-quality- see for yourself).

i dont think the transfer rates of a SATA DVD-burner would be significant enough to justify the upped price, and i dont wanna spend more than i already have planned out.

blu-ray though you may have a point, but wont it be slow (playback)?

 

[CrossCech]

I don't have a blu-ray player .... yet. However, I haven't heard anything about slow playback.
I will mention this though, while using WinDVD 9 software, I find playback of regular DVD's even better than upconverting players.