Hmm, everything looks fine there except the video card. You are kind of screwed because your motherboard only supports AGP, not PCI-E.

You could upgrade your mother board to one with PCI-E (~$60), add in a couple gigs of DDR2 RAM to go with it (~$50), and then buy a new PCI-E video card (~$100-$150). Possibly even a new power supply (~$50). That setup should run the drive. But then you've spent something like $500-$600, no small chunk of change. The computer should also be fast enough at that point to play any current game, though the newest ones at the lower settings, if that's any added value to you.

As a caution: If you want it to be any faster than that (future upgrades), you'd have to ditch the CPU, but at that point it's really just new computer time. Switching motherboards will most likely mean you also have to reformat the HDD and reinstall windows, or at least run a repair off the Windows CD, which could be a problem if you bought your computer with Windows pre-installed and have to CD or you just are comfortable with this procedure. I know all this because my dad was in the exact same situation this Christmas. He had AGP, he bought a new motherboard and RAM, I picked him up a 8600GT for his Christmas present, and when were done it ran my combo drive no problem.

Mind you all this is still cheaper than trying to buy a Blu-Ray/HD DVD combo set top, though you could probably buy separate units for $600 total. You can certainly go take a look at the setups in Best Buy or Circuit City to see if it's worth it to you. I know you don't have a 1080p display, but you will be able to play at 720p (better than DVD) and you may get one someday, at which point this setup should still be playing whatever format has "won." In the end, only you can decide if your HD viewing experience is worth your money. It was worth $300 + movies for me, I don't think I would have done it at $600 + movies, but I'm also tight on money when it comes to anything but racing

 

Ryan did you consider a projector. I just picked one up last night. Its bad, in a good way.

 

I just went blu-ray! Now I have both HD DVD and blu-ray. I like the HD Dolby a lot, it sounds great!

Doug: What projector did you pick up? I heard the Epson 1080UB is the best for the money right now, 50,000:1 contrast and 1080p!

Su2uKa: What you could do is just buy the xbox hddvd drive, then rip the hddvd to your hard drive. You won't have to upgrade your video card for the encryption, the video decoding should be done mostly by your cpu. You would just need more storage.

Tomshardware.com is a great site to look at for info.

My HTPC:
nForce 680i SLI motherboard (watercooled)
Intel Core 2 Duo overclocked to 3.3 ghz (watercooled)
2GB DDR2-800 XMS2-6400 Dominator Ram overclocked
GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
Audigy 2 zs 7.1 sound card
1.5 TB in hard drives
Vista Ultimate (p.o.s.)/Mac OS X
7.1 onkyo surround sound that supports HD Dolby/DTS
sony xbr4 lcd

 

We've planning on going the projector route for the last year now.... just a crispy situation kept that from happening when it should have!!!

I believe the Epson is one of the ones we are looking at.

 

I went budget friendly and bought my brothers. It is a Sanyo, I cannot remeber the model number off the top of my head. It is 720p. So far I have been loving it. I have yet to determine what wall color to go with so I started off with some white primer until I decide. If I get you the specs do you have the know how to suggest a wall color?

 

Naturally, the fastest color-Black. It gives the best results and the ladies like it too. Check out these links for info on screens and theater room set-up.
http://hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/606hook/ or
http://hometheatermag.com/bootcamp/137/

Any color but white!!

Sony's BlackPearl is still my choice

 

Thanks for the links Smags! I appreciate them.

 

I'll consider getting a better quality player when they start making better quality movies. I do like my X-Box 360 in High Def though........but they aren't really making any better quality games either.

 

what do you mean by better quality?