Hi there. I've recently upgraded to a HD screen and know that my existing XBMC setup is not going to be able to handle decoding of HD content at all. I'm figuring that the way to get the best quality from my screen will be DVI/HDMI at 1280x720 since this is the screen's native resolution.

I'm looking to replace my XBMC box with a small form factor pc running KnoppMyth just as a network media player to start with, but I will be looking to add digital tuners at some point in the future (when there's a better DVB signal in the area). I've looked around on a few other forums and seen that people have had problems playing back h.264 720P even on relativly new hardware (3.4ghz+), although I have a strong feeling that many of their probles will be caused by poor quality codecs.

So, what would be the best sugestion of pc spec based on the experience of MythTV users?

Thanks in advance.