Build system from scratch?

[Lance Feagan]

Sure, I personally would love to help you out in getting a good config.  I
am sure enough users on this list have used the hardware that is fairly
mainstream to know what does and does not work.  It is quite true that you
will avoid the "Microsoft Tax" by building on your own.  Besides, you will
get exactly what you want.

When looking for prices, I suggest www.pricewatch.com.  There are a couple
of vendors that I might recommend too, as I have dealt with them personally
a number of times.  Mwave [www.mwave.com] and Atacom [www.atacom.com].  They
don't always have THE lowest price, they are usually about third or fourth
lowest, but they are that way on every component, so, when you start
thinking abotu shipping, they usually beat out whatever else you can come up
with from other vendors.  Note:  This may not always be true, it merely
represents my experience.

Building a nice linux box for friends has long been a favorite past time.
It is just nice to see someone get off on the right foot with hardware.

--Lance

P.S. So, you really want a DVD-R drive so you can burn DVDs that play in a
set-top box, right?  And you also want to edit video...how serious are you
about editing video?  [i.e. do we mean professional level video and sound
mixing/editing/effects, etc?]