home theater set up using speakers and itunes music

I'm trying to figure out the simplest way to set up a home theater system with a Dish Hopper receiver with HDMI, a Blu-ray DVD player with HDMI, a set of external surround sound speakers, a plasma TV with 2 HDMI ports, a MacBook air, and a new ipod touch. All the music I want to play is in iTunes on the laptop and ipod, and I want to wirelessly stream that music to the external speakers. I also want to use the speakers when watching a movie on the DVD player.

I know I could buy an AppleTV and an 4-way HDMI switch and hook everything up to the TV, but it seems silly to have to turn on the TV just to play my music stored on my ipod using the external speakers. The only other alternative I can think of is to buy a A/V receiver that supports Apple (to stream music wirelessly), but I didn't really want to spend $300 on a receiver. I also thought of hooking up the speakers to an Airplay express, but I don't know if I can link it with the AppleTV so I can use those same speakers when watching a movie on the DVD player.

Any other suggestions? Maybe an Airplay base station? Not sure how everything would hook up?