2013-01-24 Update: I’ve been informed from a commenter that it may do DD5.1 and 1080p streaming if your ISP has signed up for Super HD. The best way it seems to get 5.1 and 1080p streaming will always be the PS3 or some set top box. But it looks like Netflix can always surprise and keeps looking forward, so I have to commend them on their efforts.
I was excited to hear that Netflix had an app for Windows 8 that did some native decoding. What this made me think was that we might have 1080p video and 5.1 surround from Windows 8, similar to what the PS3 does. I did some searching to try to find the answer to this question but couldn’t find anything. I’m not sure on the 1080p streaming but I know from trying a couple of movies on both the PS3 and my Windows 8 PC that the new Netflix app on Windows 8 does not do 5.1 surround sound. Hopefully this will answer some others’ questions on this topic.