Denon’s HDMI 1.3 Receivers

A few months ago we first heard rumblings about Denon's upcoming line of receivers, Home Theater Blog has a more details on the upcoming receivers. The higher end models, AVR-4308ci and 3808ci are expected out in July and will feature four HDMI 1.3 inputs, HD audio decoding over HDMI, Ethernet connectivity and support for Windows Media PlayForSure.  The lower end models, 1508, 1708, and 2808 will support HDMI 1.3 but will not internally decode the HD audio formats. However, you can still get HD audio if it is decoded from the DVD player.

Does anyone else think these companies that offer media connectivity as an add on should team up with the likes of Sage/Snapstream for a decent GUI?

From the article:

The AVR-3808ci (also tentatively expected in July) will retail for
$1,599 and features four HDMI 1.3 inputs, support for internal Dolby
TrueHD and DTS-HD audio decoding over HDMI, auto lip-sync correction,
6-position Audyssey MultEQ, Ethernet connectivity and again presumably
support for Windows Media PlaysForSure. The 3808ci also supports
digital to analog conversion for multi-zone applications. Both the
AVR-4308ci and AVR-3808ci are said to have had their on-screen
graphical interfaces redesigned as well.

The second wave of receivers in September will include the AVR-1508,
AVR-1708 and AVR-2808 (no pricing as yet). The AVR-1508 AVR-1708 will
support HDMI 1.3 but ‘switching mode’ only, in a nutshell that means
that they will support HDMI audio, ‘Deep Color’ and 1080p pass-through
but not internal Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD processing, although you can
still achieve lossless audio from Blu-ray and HD DVD output as PCM from
the players over HDMI.