yoda-sama said:

I don't see why people bother with all the headache when there's plenty of PC-based solutions, which can also bring a lot more to the table beyond just video...

I think the reason for many is there is no headache. Put the disc in, and play it. There's nothing else I want to do with my TV, so the same procedure works for everything. I only consider an HTPC because I'm a tinkerer--I can't even think of an actual problem I've really encountered that it solves.

Agree discs are not fully silent within a certain radius, but even in the worst-case scenario, they spin slower than fans and hard drives, and certain vendors take a little more care choosing quiet transports (for not really that much more money), which makes them effectively silent at any reasonable viewing distance. The audiophile market, crazy as they are, gets vendors to make nice stuff sometimes.