Lars, thanks for the mention of Home Theater PCs for DVD playing.

I have already experimented with going that route and have ruled it out. Reasons:

1) Software players on HTPCs don't do motion-adaptive deinterlacing and aren't good at cadence reading. All of the problems which plague the flag-reading players (fuzzy-looking video mode, combing, etc) are there on HTPC-based players. Note that in the shootouts I linked in the DVD thread, some PC players were compared to the consumer players as part of the reviews. You can look at their comments about them there. My tests in this area (hooking my PC up to the TV with a breakout cable and using PowerStrip) bear this out. For less than $250.00, I can get a Consumer progressive DVD player that doesn't have any of these problems.

2) Layout of my home theater system. I need the DVD player to be a standard-sized component in order to work nicely in my living room.

3) Reliability. Sorry, my cheap consumer DVD player still beats an expensive computer any day in that area. My DVD player never crashes or locks up with a blue screen of death.

4) Users. The other people in my household need to be able to use it. Consumer DVD player wins again.

5) Noise/Heat. PCs have fans. Consumer DVD players don't.

6) TV inputs. In order to do an HTPC proper justice, I need to use the RGB input on my TV set. I've only got one of those inputs, and it's already taken up by my HDTV receiver.

After all of that, there is nothing about using a PC as a DVD player that improves upon a properly-made consumer DVD player. HTPC's are a nice idea, but I'd rather just use a good DVD player which does everything right.

And by the way, things like the PS2 and Xbox, although they will play DVDs, tend to be lousy DVD players I'm told. You're still better off getting a dedicated DVD player.