I started playing around the with "MyMovies" software that blends with VMC and I can settle with that for backing up DVDs and playing them back. The video quality is 1:1 so there is not compression and no fuzziness
. My biggest issue/concern right now is the hard drive space. I ripped "The Last Kiss" and "Batman Begins", just the movie and 5.1 audio via DVDShrink (no compression) this morning. This wound up being 4GB for "The Last Kiss" and 6.3GB for "Batman Begins". So if the average movie is 5GB for JUST the main movie and 5.1 audio, then my configuration below will only allow me to store roughly 120 movies (give or take). I've got a 40GB folder for my torrent downloads (movies, music, programs, etc) and about 25-30GB of that is movies and music. Looks like the 640GB drive won't last long huh?
I also pieced together my HTPC without the case:
As for the case, I'm still trying to find a good looking HTPC case without having to break the bank. I'll keep on looking . . .