Harmy
As to the HTPC, I for one use my PC for most of my movie playback.
AntcuFaalb
Our HTPC allows us to:
1. Watch things we download from Usenet on our TV; e.g., a 1.5GiB episode of Modern Family downloads in less than 5 minutes
2. Watch "webisodes"; e.g., Cinemassacre.com videos
3. Retrogaming (mostly NES using the Nestopia emulator) – we have USB NES controllers, so it mostly feels "real"
4. "Modern"gaming; e.g., we're playing the AVGN game on Steam right now
We don't use our HTPC exclusively, of course. We have tons of equipment, physical media, and video game consoles. Our HTPC does, however, act as a really convenient supplement.
What are your builds? I have been thinking about going into building my own HTPC to play movies on and I would be very interested AntcuFaalb's emulator setup I would love to play Super Star Wars right after getting off of a Despecialized marathon