I have a cheap Egreat NMT connected to a 2 tb hdd.
I never found it to be a waste, I'm very much pleased with it actually.
PQ and SQ although not the best around, is good enough for me. Displays 1080/24 with no probs with DTS HDMA.
I had my money's worth..... and a lot more... Bang for buck
I would recomend nmts to anybody, especially the ones below 5k pesos... If an MKV player is all you need, I dont think HTPCs are what you need, since those can get very costly.