Originally Posted by SR740
I know I'm missing something here and you will all point it out quickly.

If/when I move to 4K for my system...my plan is to either use the native smart TV capabilities or feed an HDMI input on the TV with Apple TV, Roku, etc. The 4K sets I have looked at all have an optical audio output on them. I would simply feed that to my 861v8 as a digital source and have the same / similar 5.1 signal that my HD621 previously peeled off. Would this work and how large of a hit in sound quality am I going to take? This scenario is at least a year away for me...

Content on Netflix used to be DD5.1 which is 640kbps. More recent content is DD+ at 7.1 at 3mbps. For streaming services, when they say "Dolby Atmos" it means a DD+ stream with Atmos metadata. On blu-ray or 4K discs, Atmos means True HD lossless audio plus Atmos metadata.

So you are fundamentally limited by streaming. That said, DD+ is better much than DD, and you can't get DD+ over an SPDIF nor ARC. An Apple TV 4k, I am told, will do the conversion from DD+ to LPCM onboard, and then send that along with the video. For sure a TV wont send that back to you. However, I never got 4k/7.1 working from my Playstation Pro, via my HD621 and ended up getting a 722.

Cave: Trinnov Altitude CI-8; Oppo 203 Vanity HD; 6xDSP5k, DSP5kC, D1500; Sony Z9D, PS5 Pro; Apple TV 4K
Living: Wiim Pro; Rega Planar 1+; 2xDSP5k
Master: Wiim Pro; 2xDSP3100
Kitchen: Bluesound Flex stereo pair / Amazon Echo Studio
Deck: Wiim Mini; Random Chinese Class D; Cambridge Soundworks Outdoor 52s; Polk Sub;
Garage: Wiim Pro; 2x5k