Is he considering Blu Ray at all - because if he is it may affect his choice of hardware?
I find my 3 year old top-of-the-range-then cinema amp struggles with some of the audio options available on some Blu Ray discs. I find some discs have to be set for more basic Dolby / DTS audio, otherwise it falls back to two channel stereo!
A digital audio out on his laptop will be essential in any case if he needs more than two channels - even on DVDs.
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