Well, the answer is yes.  I finished ripping all my CDs, which was painful but now that it’s done IT’S DONE.  Then I ripped out the damn Escient Fireball and associated Sony CD Jukebox.  But now I realize I can’t hook my Media Center PC up to my infrastructure!  My 6 year old Yamaha AV Receiver doesn’t take an HDMI input, only analog video inputs!  My Dell Studio Slim 540S only outputs HDMI or DVI.  For video purposes I’m kind of screwed.  For audio purposes, which was my #1 goal, I can get a DVI to Component Video adapter cable (which may or may not actually work) just so I can use the TV as a monitor for the Dell.  But to get high enough quality to use the 540S for video (e.g., it has a Blu-Ray drive) I’ll need to buy a new home theater receiver!  On top of that, I’d hoped to be able to pipe the 540S’ video through the RF infrastructure of the house so that you could view the media center output from any TV (the fireball output both component video and RF at the same time).  That, along with the house-wide IR repeater system would allow control of the MC from any room in the house (as was done with the Fireball).  And as an added bonus, it would have allowed for slide shows or lower quality viewing of video from the MC on any TV.  It really looks like I’m going to have to upgrade just about the entire house, with the exception of the audio distribution system.  I can still use that to pump audio from the MC to any room.

This reminds me of how my friends and I used to joke about our audio equipment.  You could never replace just one component since the system would become unbalanced and you’d start to crave additional upgrades.  Purchase a better receiver and you’d soon want new speakers, and so on.  I’d certainly hoped to avoid that.  But I know I can’t.  For example, once I get Blu-Ray working I know we’ll have to upgrade at least one TV to support 1080P.  Sigh, some things never change.