As they say - your mileage may vary. And certainly, if I burned movies as I got them, rather than all at once, the process would become a whole lot more palatable.
The trick to making the HTPC a functional part of your is to either go ALL IN or not go at all, I think.
If you invest wisely, you can build a nice HTPC that will function well for years, will have TV reception and recording capability and, of course, will give you access to internet based media. If the system is a one stop shop for all of those things, then there is certainly a lot of appeal to it, in theory.
I won't tell you not to do it, I can only share my experience. Again, my experience was that the PC part of my setup is great for surfing the web on the TV, listening to music and looking at pictures (all cool features with friends at parties or playing slide shows for folks rather than having to cluster around a 15 inch laptop monitor). The PC was not good for much else, though and was not a good replacement for DVD/BluRay player or Cable box.
