bjerols

epic reply with tons of details!  thank you so much for your guidance

I don't have a problem keeping the HDs external to the HTPC (currently I do exactly this with a Drobo) but I don't care much about form factor or size as I plan on keeping it separate from the living room / tv viewing area.  Here in the States our buildings are very different and it is very easy to wire our house walls so I will just send HDMI to the TV, and need to figure out remote capabilities (RF remote or IR with an extender that I would also wire through the walls).  But size of the box I am very flexible on

I will look into EyeTV software and HD USB TV Tuner sticks as I see from reading builds that the OS doesn't work with a PCI version TV Tuner