I was speaking with a friend of mine who's new to the Home Theater PC space and he brought up a great point--after saying how much he loved the new site design, he admitted to being a bit overwhelmed by some of the content that basically assumes you know some of the standard knowledge about this world of HTPC. I agreed, and thus this beginner's guide was born. For the sake of your sanity, we will break these guides up into small categories to hopefully make it easier to digest as well as continue to evolve.