Advice: purchasing 7.1 Speakers for Blu-ray

[GlynG]

I’m going to buy a high definition home theatre setup soon – either using a PS3 as the main blu-ray player, or buying a media centre style PC.

I’d like to get some good (but not excessively expensive) 7.1 speakers for it – I understand the majority of existing blu-ray movies only have 5.1 sound but this I’d rather future proof it. Also there are doors in two corners of our lounge and there’s more scope for good positioning of 7.1 speakers than there would be with 5.1.

Bear with me if this is a 'newbie' question but do I need an amp and what exactly for? The 7.1 amps in the Sony store were massive great big things with masses of connections I’d probably nearly all never use. While on my existing computer I have a good set of Creative 7.1 Gigaworks, that are plugged straight in to the computer’s soundcard and sound fine without an amp.

Can I get a good set of 7.1s (and an amp if necessary) for blu-ray and music listening for around £150-300? I’d want a system that is fine to output lossless 7.1 sound from the blu-ray without worrying about HDCP in future (if this applies to audio as well as visually?).

I have read that the PS3 can output lossless sound, but only in the PCM format and not bitstream (not that I know exactly what these are). Would I need specific sorts of speakers/amps to work with this? If so is the same true if I were to buy a media centre PC or can they output to any?

Thanks in advance for any replies / suggestions!

Glyn