Total newbie - What to purchase for Raspberry Pi home theatre?

I know this was already answered but I wanted to throw my 2 pennies on top and maybe give you some additional ideas about setting this up.

Materials:

- 1 Raspberry Pi (yay!)

- (optional) A case for the Pi - element14 sells a great one for this use case, fits the board like a glove and supports the connectors really well.  I would link it but the site is down atm.

- SD Card with RaspBMC (get a fast one, SDHC)

- Edimax ew-7811un USB WiFi adapter - These are like $10 and awesome, I have 6 of them around in various applications.  Love them.

- Micro USB power supply - 500mA will work, 1A is better and more versatile.

- HDMI cable - To connect to the TV.

- xbmcRemote App for iPhone or Android - I have the iPhone version but I'm pretty sure there is an Android version as well.

- You'll want at least a keyboard for the initial setup, but the idea is to use your smart phone as the remote control later on.

What I did:

- Image the SD card with the installer for xbmc.

- Insert the card into the Raspberry Pi and boot it with the WiFi adapter attached.  You can use an ethernet cable here but you'll then have to configure/switch to the WiFi later which isn't too tough but why make more work for yourself?

- Follow the prompts to connect to your network and install xbmc proper.

- Configure xbmc for the time zone, etc.  Mess around in the menu to get a feel for everything if you've never used it before and make sure that the use of external remotes is allowed.  Pretty sure this is turned on by default but I could be remembering that wrong.  Another thing to enable is AirPlay if you use iDevices.  This will give you the ability to not only control your TV with your iPhone/iPod Touch but stream music straight to it over WiFi.  Boss.

- Mount Samba or AFP network shares that contain your media.  The Raspberry Pi now acts as a media server that streams media from your main computer or NAS.

Once you get past the initial setup all you have to do is connect your RPi to HDMI and Power.  You can completely control the interface for xbmc with your smartphone app and skip having a mouse and keyboard cluttering up your coffee table or whatever, collecting dust when not in use and taking up real estate where you should be setting your frosty beverage of choice which would, of course, spill onto said keyboard and/or mouse getting it sticky and causing you unneccesary irritation which leads, inevitably, to run-on sentences.

EDIT:  I neglected to mention that mounting your network shares is all done through the mostly friendly xbmc interface so you won't have to muck about with shell commands.  I personally love shell commands and I highly recommend getting some experience with using them if you haven't any, but this was written up with the "Total Newbie" in mind. 

I know this was already answered but I wanted to throw my 2 pennies on top and maybe give you some additional ideas about setting this up.

Materials:

- 1 Raspberry Pi (yay!)

- (optional) A case for the Pi - element14 sells a great one for this use case, fits the board like a glove and supports the connectors really well.  I would link it but the site is down atm.

- SD Card with RaspBMC (get a fast one, SDHC)

- Edimax ew-7811un USB WiFi adapter - These are like $10 and awesome, I have 6 of them around in various applications.  Love them.

- Micro USB power supply - 500mA will work, 1A is better and more versatile.

- HDMI cable - To connect to the TV.

- xbmcRemote App for iPhone or Android - I have the iPhone version but I'm pretty sure there is an Android version as well.

- You'll want at least a keyboard for the initial setup, but the idea is to use your smart phone as the remote control later on.

What I did:

- Image the SD card with the installer for xbmc.

- Insert the card into the Raspberry Pi and boot it with the WiFi adapter attached.  You can use an ethernet cable here but you'll then have to configure/switch to the WiFi later which isn't too tough but why make more work for yourself?

- Follow the prompts to connect to your network and install xbmc proper.

- Configure xbmc for the time zone, etc.  Mess around in the menu to get a feel for everything if you've never used it before and make sure that the use of external remotes is allowed.  Pretty sure this is turned on by default but I could be remembering that wrong.  Another thing to enable is AirPlay if you use iDevices.  This will give you the ability to not only control your TV with your iPhone/iPod Touch but stream music straight to it over WiFi.  Boss.

- Mount Samba or AFP network shares that contain your media.  The Raspberry Pi now acts as a media server that streams media from your main computer or NAS.

Once you get past the initial setup all you have to do is connect your RPi to HDMI and Power.  You can completely control the interface for xbmc with your smartphone app and skip having a mouse and keyboard cluttering up your coffee table or whatever, collecting dust when not in use and taking up real estate where you should be setting your frosty beverage of choice which would, of course, spill onto said keyboard and/or mouse getting it sticky and causing you unneccesary irritation which leads, inevitably, to run-on sentences.

EDIT:  I neglected to mention that mounting your network shares is all done through the mostly friendly xbmc interface so you won't have to muck about with shell commands.  I personally love shell commands and I highly recommend getting some experience with using them if you haven't any, but this was written up with the "Total Newbie" in mind.