Do you have an iPhone or iPad? That would make the equation much simpler.
Looking at the components, and their expected life can give you some guidance as to where to spend your money. Going from longest lived (best place to spend money) to shortest (less effective place to spend money):
Television. If you get a UHD with both HDR-10 and Dolby vision support you could be looking at over 10 years. There are some HDMI upgrades in the works, but that won't effect the functionality of the unit. I have a Sony HD CRT (it was their last and best large screen CRT) which is somewhere between 10-13 years old. I'm only now starting to think about replacing it. If you can find a TV that supports Airplay then you may be able to eliminate the headache of having to get some sort of app or Apple TV. Even better if it supports Plex.
Receiver. My Yamaha Receiver is 6 years old, does both DTS-MA and Dolby Master. Newer systems run apps, and can support Airplay but the sound is the same as my older system (other than supporting Dolby Atmos). I gain nothing from upgrading. If you are thinking that you have to buy a DAC, there are inexpensive receivers that cost not much more than some DAC's that would allow you to connect to the TV via HDMI which makes life much easier. If the receiver supports Airplay, then you might be able to avoid an Apple TV if your TV doesn't support Airplay. Is your only source of tv content going to be streaming?
Router. My time capsules are between 3-6 years old. But there is a lot of activity in this area with routers supporting the ad standard (which has limitations)
I have a 120Mbps connection, so that's fine.
Just want to confirm that this is the
speed test results that you get with a
wireless connection on a device such as an iPhone or iPad at the location where the television will be. That's a rather high wireless data rate, the kind you would get from an AC router. My older a/c/n Airport Extreme only delivers around 50 Mbps 3 feet away from it, and it drops to 15 Mbps to the room upstairs less than 30 feet away. This is probably the biggest cause of headaches when streaming via something like Plex, so this one you have to get right or you have a TV that you can't use for streaming.
Your Mac has wireless? You can connect to the internet without an ethernet connection? Now that I think of it if you are going Mac-TV I'm not sure whether your internet router's wireless is involved.
I do have a lot of video content, through sources like Kanopy
Kanopy says you have to have at least 5Mbps for a HD stream. Very vague unfortunately.
a lot of video through VLC
These are DVD's, Blu-Rays, YouTube videos? What resolution are they (and bitrate if you have it).
Apple TV. We're now on generation 4, with rumors that the next generation will support 4K video. So you don't want to spend much money here. There are other devices, such as a Roku Box (don't think it supports Airplay), Chromecast and others. A lot depends upon whether you want to stay in the Apple Ecosystem - easy of use, fewer options, but pricier.
I mentioned Parallels, but should have said Parallels Access. Sometimes I forget to start my plex server when I try to watch something to help me sleep. I can bring up the Parallels Access app on my iPad upstarts and start the server on my Mac downstairs. But there is a yearly fee for Access so it probably isn't worth it. Plex is free.
My initial though from all of this is that you could minimize costs by getting a TV (or a receiver) that supports Airplay, even if you have the inconvenience of having to run into the next room to pause, change content. etc.
[doublepost=1491383002][/doublepost]Do you have an iPhone or iPad? That would make the equation much simpler.
Looking at the components, and their expected life can give you some guidance as to where to spend your money. Going from longest lived (best place to spend money) to shortest (less effective place to spend money):
Television. If you get a UHD with both HDR-10 and Dolby vision support you could be looking at over 10 years. There are some HDMI upgrades in the works, but that won't effect the functionality of the unit. I have a Sony HD CRT (it was their last and best large screen CRT) which is somewhere between 10-13 years old. I'm only now starting to think about replacing it. If you can find a TV that supports Airplay then you may be able to eliminate the headache of having to get some sort of app or Apple TV. Even better if it supports Plex.
Receiver. My Yamaha Receiver is 6 years old, does both DTS-MA and Dolby Master. Newer systems run apps, and can support Airplay but the sound is the same as my older system (other than supporting Dolby Atmos). I gain nothing from upgrading. If you are thinking that you have to buy a DAC, there are inexpensive receivers that cost not much more than some DAC's that would allow you to connect to the TV via HDMI which makes life much easier. If the receiver supports Airplay, then you might be able to avoid an Apple TV if your TV doesn't support Airplay. Is your only source of tv content going to be streaming?
Router. My time capsules are between 3-6 years old. But there is a lot of activity in this area with routers supporting the ad standard (which has limitations)
I have a 120Mbps connection, so that's fine.
Just want to confirm that this is the
speed test results that you get with a
wireless connection on a device such as an iPhone or iPad at the location where the television will be. That's a rather high wireless data rate, the kind you would get from an AC router. My older a/c/n Airport Extreme only delivers around 50 Mbps 3 feet away from it, and it drops to 15 Mbps to the room upstairs less than 30 feet away. This is probably the biggest cause of headaches when streaming via something like Plex, so this one you have to get right or you have a TV that you can't use for streaming.
Your Mac has wireless? You can connect to the internet without an ethernet connection? Now that I think of it if you are going Mac-TV I'm not sure whether your internet router's wireless is involved.
I do have a lot of video content, through sources like Kanopy
Kanopy says you have to have at least 5Mbps for a HD stream. Very vague unfortunately.
a lot of video through VLC
These are DVD's, Blu-Rays, YouTube videos? What resolution are they (and bitrate if you have it).
Apple TV. We're now on generation 4, with rumors that the next generation will support 4K video. So you don't want to spend much money here. There are other devices, such as a Roku Box (don't think it supports Airplay), Chromecast and others. A lot depends upon whether you want to stay in the Apple Ecosystem - easy of use, fewer options, but pricier.
I mentioned Parallels, but should have said Parallels Access. Sometimes I forget to start my plex server when I try to watch something to help me sleep. I can bring up the Parallels Access app on my iPad upstarts and start the server on my Mac downstairs. But there is a yearly fee for Access so it probably isn't worth it. Plex is free.
My initial though from all of this is that you could minimize costs by getting a TV (or a receiver) that supports Airplay, even if you have the inconvenience of having to run into the next room to pause, change content. etc.
