JRiver MC16 + DVD/Bluray file playback

[scraps@midnight]

I have recently moved to a server (Windows 7 laptop/JRiver MC16) and have been thrilled with my audio performance. It's now time to tackle the daunting task of shedding my DVD player and moving to an all in one HT server but I'm really starting from scratch knowledge wise. I'm wondering if I can get a little help on the basics from some of you guys that have been here before. My goals are to have the best possible sound/video quality (bitperfect) playing DVD/Bluray files from a HD and streaming from Netflix (maybe). My system is 5.1 and I will be outputting HDMI from W7/MC16 laptop to an Integra DHC80.1 prepro.

 

To start, what file types are suggested for 5.1 DVD and BluRay? Any basic suggestions on configuring MC16 and W7 for bitperfect audio/video? I have done some reading in the JRiver wiki+forum but still kinda confused. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

Lastly, am I compromising my 2 channel performance by trying to make this a multi use server vs dedicated hifi?

 

I realize these are probably dumb questions for most of you folks but even after a few years of messing with computer audio I still feel like a total newbie!