Thanks John. I do remember reading that now. My main concern is avoiding audio reprocessing by windows. It looks like an ATI Radion 4650 and bluray player will do that.
Following up at AVS forum it looks like Asus is still the only company out there that is able to provide protected path audio. If that new Oppo bluray player was a little les expensive I would just give up on the idea of an HTPC. Its a great idea, but I suspect content providers are so paranoid the don't really want it to become a reality.
