Visited a few places today.
Well, PLEX can't do Blu-Ray, only DVD, so useless as a library. You can buy streaming for all the movies you already paid for and a monthly fee for the cloud serving; good luck if that service changes. Now, to use it as an OTA DVR, maybe useful, but I very rarely watch the broadcast channels. Most NAS can support it, even a Raspberry.
The Contro4 will do the remote control I want for but would be about $3500 total including an iPad remote. My TV may not have discrete codes so that could be an issue. ( Excuse for OLED TV) BUT, if IP controlled, when your router reboots, DCHP may change the IPs and it then requires dealer service! So only safe way is to put in a bridge with private LAN.
A Universal remote, IR based, can at least lock the volume control to the AVR, for about $800 and again, I can't make any changes. $110 an hour for service and unless the store sells the exact equipment you have, they can't verify the setup without a service call. Figure 3 hours. Funny, the STB remote I had in MD could!
Neither guy was surprised I could not get ARC to work. Seems it was very flakey on early systems. Clean reboot ( loose all config) sometimes works. I think I'll spend $9 on a TOSLINK cable. I plugged my TV into the net this morning, and it just told me it did a firmware upgrade, so will try again.
Sony and LG OLED TV's are impressive. Newer up-scalers have improved. Legit upgrade.
For my living room, neither guy was surprised at my disappointment with my Parasound 2140 amp ( one was a dealer). I guess I need to re-cap my old amp and go back to it. Still tempted buy both Schiit amps. Both suggested the baby Marantz integrated as just as good DAC and good amp, but like a lot of things, backordered. Chip backorders, shipping backorders, and rolling blackouts in China are drying up everything. So electronics are as bad as woodworking machines.
Well, will hit the shop tomorrow to finish up my new center channel and work on re-cabinet my mains to build them into the walls lower. Excuse to play with veneering some more.