If you had to do it all over again?

So, I’ve been through so many different brands of this that and the other when doing a PVR system. I’m looking for advice and pros/cons of doing a build from scratch. Part of my problem is, after I get something set up, I fall out of the scene for so long, everytime I come back it’s all new.

So my question is this:

If you had to do it all over again, what hardware would you invest in, and what software would you run? (I would love to run KODI as my front end) I am looking for ease of operation, stability, and mostly hassle free. (I know there are gremlins in every machine that like to rear their ugly heads once in a while)

I am looking to build a little tiny mATX box for my HTPC. I would prefer to run Windows 10 (Because that’s what all my other machines are running). I’m not against running Linux, but that’s a learning curve I have to hit again (It’s been a while).

I have pay digital cable service with HBO (Currently as part of a promo for 1 year, but I won’t be renewing it because I don’t like paying for premium channels) so I will need to use a cablecard adapter.

I want to be able to record, watch live, and possibly autoskip commercials, without automatically cutting the original file in case the commercial detection sucks.

I do watch movies generally, and they come in a plethora of different formats such as divx, mkv, avi, wmv, and mp4. I also have a lot of home videos that are in a bunch of different formats depending on what they were recorded on, and when.

I have noticed that even my gaming machine (i7, loaded blah blah blah) is essentially silent 95% of the time, so having a few slow fans doesn’t bother me at all, because I am not sure I would ever hear them anyway.

Thoughts, advice, input, sarcasm, pros, cons are welcome!

Thank you,
Bradley