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Don't forget you can also get a cheapo laptop/netbook for $299 that does all of the above as well, and is easy to find other software for (fun little emulation machines paired with a 360 controller), that you can easily toss in a bunch of usb external drives and get terrabytes of storage.

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That's true. An old net book or second hand laptop could be re-purposed as a NAS. I've found though that getting smooth HD out of older hardware, isn't that good. And the desktop OSs are pretty crappy on a TV. There's certainly a gap in the market here. Currently this is a very confusing landscape. It's bad enough trying to find a machine that will handle multiple codecs.

The good news is that there are decent media center software stacks that do an ok job if you don't like mousing around a desktop OS.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/

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