I don't know well a PC would do replacing a preamp/receiver but for many years now my HT has been:
HTPC
AVR
TV
Speakers
I love the simplicity of this setup. Being able to do everything in one place and do it very well is awesome. Now that Ceton and Silicon Dust have cablecard tuners coming out I will be able to (finnaly) add full HD to the HTPC (I currently just get the clear QAM channels in HD). I've become a bit of a GUI snob in that anything other than MCE drives me crazy. I DISPISE DVR's from cable and satilite companies along with stand alone DVD/BD players, etc.
