A friend put this new technology into perspective.
The VAST MAJORITY of the people in north america do not go out any buy blue-ray or DVD disks. They are happy to watch TV via Cable/Satellite and stream from Netflix or AppleTV. Non of those formats have the bandwidth or capability to really do 4K let alone high bitrate audio with DTS X or Atmos. (yes Netflix says it can do 4k but it doesn't work for +95% of their customers so it's a select niche market)
Here in Canada there are NO dvd/bluray rental places any more. The selection in most stores have maybe 2-3 shelves of selection for new releases (and walmart has the $5 bargin bin).
You need to answer the question of what type of viewer you are of material. Are you the niche want the best at any cost, or are you the happy to watch what is playing on NetFlix even if the picture quality isn't always the best? Would you be just as happy to watch a movie on DVD, or go out of your way because if it isn't on 1080p blue-ray it just isn't worth watching?
Buy your next receiver in relation to the answer of that question. Why buy more features than you will ever use just in case? In 3-4 years they will have HDMI 3.x and who knows what new standard to chase after. But it will likely be for a niche market that will not be cheep as it takes selling a whole lot to bring prices down.
So true, so "wrong," but so true. People just don't know what they are missing with disc based entertainment and are happy with poor quality HD or 4K and lower quality audio streamed for convenience ("my" version of "so wrong" LOL). I would say that if you really like watching movies and invest in a nice display and sound, then physical media is still the way to go. I happen to be lucky enough to live less than 3 minutes from a real brick and mortar video rental store that seems to do enough business that they won't go out of business any time soon.
Agreed though that if you are someone who streams mostly, then yeah, the more speakers, power, features aren't important.
