And I guess all of you don't have a decent AVR, let alone a decent speaker system. If you ever heard a Blu-Ray DTS HD Master over a decent home theater (which btw is specced up to 10MBit/s stream for audio) you wouldn't talk this stuff out of your backs.
Do I need a Mac as HTPC? Sure as hell not, because I actually own a lot of Blu-Rays and some of them (those Live Concert Blus) are a real joy to watch over and over again.
I have a Pioneer Elite HDTV and Blu-ray player with a decent Denon receiver. Boy the quality is just unbelievable superb.
Ideally transferring all these discs to ATV at highest quality will make life much easier to pick and watch a movie/show.
Looking at the shelf to select a disc and putting it on the player gets old and I think make you less probe to watch stuff.
That is where I think streaming is unbeatable.