I assume you mean a couple of HD-DVD drives...?
... yeah, that's another solution. Although then the OP's still dependent on his Xbox 360. If that goes kaputt...? And if you're gonna spend $150 on two spare HD-DVD drives, why not spend that on a media player and gain the wider functionality?
Personally, what I love about the Popcorn Hour machines (I have an A-110...), is that they provide a means of playing back movies and TV shows without having to use video discs. Even though I treat my DVDs like they're made out of unicorn-horn (I'm seriously fussy about it...), after a few years of steady use, some of them have started to fail and have had to be replaced. And sure, replacing three or four discs doesn't cost all that much, but replacing 20 or 30 really starts to rack-up - particularly if these discs form part of TV boxsets that need to be replaced en masse. But since getting the A-110 in August, I've ripped nearly all of my discs to hard drives and put my discs into storage, and now I don't need to touch them anymore.
It's not a solution for everyone, but it certainly has been for me. And I encourage other users to look into it.