SFF for HTPC in living room

[MacBriar]

Guys looking for a bit of advice. I am planning on building a box for playing DVDs, MP3s and recording TV, basically I need a system with TV out which will allow me to add a Hauppauge PVR250 card and playback recorded shows with no loss in quality (rules out MiniITX methinks).

I have a Shuttle SN412G2 (Athlon Thunderbird 1200) as my main system so I know Shuttles.

Questions are;
1. Celeron 2.0 or Athlon 2.0 which will lead to a quieter system ?
2. Shuttle system vs AOpen XC cube?
3. Are the latest Athlon CPU's (XP Barton) cooler running than my ageing T'bird 1200 ?

My main concern is system noise. Is a Shuttle with the Sunon ICE fan replaced and the honeycomb grill removed really much quieter ?

or would I be better going the mATX route to get a quieter system.

I really don't want to mess around modding the PSU on a Shuttle as the system will need to run 24/7 and I don't want the house burning down. If needs be I can wait and buy the new PSU when it becomes available.

Thanks for any advice.

EDIT Sorry for reposting this message

[evildoc614]

well if you dont mind cutting out the honeycomb and replacing the sunon fan with a less noisey one then they are pretty quiet. my shuttle is in my livingroom and before i removed the grill and changed the fan i could hear the fan over the tv. now that i have take care of that only time i can here the computer is if nothing in the room is on ( tv, radio or if my wife isnt talking to me ). i would go with the Athlon over the Celeron. i hate celerons they are crap and if you plan on doing any video editing with the shuttle you can forget about it with the shuttle. my shuttle idles at 39-40c and load is 46c. i have a Panaflo L1 fan running at 100% all the time and it makes less noise then the Sunon at 5%.