You are spot on, spending $1000 to accomplish what you are looking for is perfectly ridiculous. The demeaning responses you recieved are from nothing but a bunch of JACKWAGONS that feel the need to troll this site and jump up on their soap boxes in a feeble effort to make themselves look intelligent and at the same time justify spending $ on things that Apple and many others offer for free now.

Check out the apple TV and an itouch (if u dont have an iphone already). you will be amazed at the cool things you can do for whole home audio and video with their Airplay technology. EVERYTHING is 2way feedback - you can see whats playing, volume levels etc. you would just leave your denon set at a good level and then control the volume using the apple controls. works like a charm - apple TV $100. ipod touch $150. and all via wifi so you can control it from your yard if you wish! Also think if you have company over that own an itouch or iphone. They can play whatever audio or video they have on their devices too without even having to get up, just press a button on their device and they take over, really cool stuff.

There is also a really cool app offered by Griffin (i'm sure theres many out there now but i way just checking this one out) to use your iphone, ipad, itouch etc as a complete universal. it sends blue tooth commands to a $50 module which then translates the blue tooth to IR for your gear to pick up on.