What specs to I need? (build question)

So im looking to enter the htpc arena, wahoo!


I want to know some of the minimun specs i should be looking for. The only thing this box will do is run MyMovies w/totalmediatheater thats it no other plugins,programs, nothing, nathan, nada, zip, videos will mostly be blu-ray. All my movies will be ripped to hard drives.


I am not looking to build the box myself i will most likely by an off the shelf from tiger or best buy or i was thinking about ordering a custom hp slimline or dell zino. lets say for example i ordered a zino 410, what processor would you go with? how much ram? and what video card? i dont want to spend more then i have to, but want the thing to run smooth and responsive..


i guess my question is, what are the minimums and whats overkill? if the only thing im doing is running mymovies what do i need? i do want my menu scrolling in mymovies to be smoooth as butter and the picture quality it outputs to be pristine, right now on my laptop mymovies is kind of jerky but the laptop is like 4 yrs old on vista


also want to add that i dont care about audio output i dont have a fancy system and most likely will never get one just like a great picture(i know audiophiles im crazy


also side question will i get the same picture quality from my htpc as i do from my standalone player? im ripping the full blu-ray no compression...etc


thanks!