Gonk:

Missed the Dolby Volume part. Thank you for pointing this out.

As far as the hacked down PC portion being a non-trivial item, I am not sure I agree. After all a Cisco WRT54GL wireless router which includes embedded Linux retails these days for under $54.00 Linux is embedded in a lot of devices these days from cell phones to DVD players. However, my thrust was not so much for the added functionality as a way of being able to do things with a general purpose processor and software rather then using custom logic chips and the like. Its a lot easier to patch software then work around the inherent logic flaws that might be burned into a chip even if you have firmware upgrade capability.