when will blu ray movies have 7.1 soundtracks as standard?

i know few are 7.1 but when will they become more common?

i currently have a 7.1 system and i want to utilize 7.1 Dolby HD or 7.1 PCM but without a 7.1 soundtrack would have to use the 5.1 Dolby HD track and not use the rear 2 speakers.

I wouldn't expect them to ever be "standard," or if they do it will take quite a few years. If the rate of adoption of Dolby EX and DTS-ES Discrete is any indication, 7.1 TrueHD and DTS-HD tracks are going to continue to be intermittent. When the HD format war started, there were a number of comments suggesting that interest in mixing such tracks was low - bordering on outright resistance to do so - in the industry because it wasn't being used in the theaters and thus required creating two separate multichannel mixes (one at 5.1 for theaters, one at 7.1 for video release). I haven't seen much talk about that in a couple years, but I would suspect that the issue of investing time and effort in additional mixing work would still hold true and would most impact movies with less successful box office results. (Take Speed Racer as an example - it's BD release is reported to be a BD-25 with basic Dolby Digital audio, not a higher-bitrate transfer on BD-50 with a lossless audio track, and the decision to do so is generally being attributed to SR's poor box office take.)

For folks using HDMI for their Blu-ray audio, it will often be possible to use matrix processing modes like Pro Logic IIx to expand 5.1 tracks to 7.1, but for folks using multichannel analog it remains to be seen what player manufacturers will do for us. Even 7.1 analog outputs on players remain a bit elusive, but in theory a player with 7.1 analog out and onboard decoding could include Pro Logic IIx or something similar and be configured to automatically engage that when a 5.1 track is being played. I haven't seen it yet in Blu-ray hardware, but OPPO already did it (with a basic steering logic rather than PLIIx) on their 980H and 983H players.

In addition to what Gonk said, surround sound plugins and support for studio software - such as Digidesign, Logic etc - didn't really come into their own until the last 5 years. Studio's don't always update their software to the latest releases either because they don't want to deal with bugs when everything is flowing well.

The surround sound software is much easier to use today and is much more automated, but it doesn't mean it is used and remixing a film's audio tracks would be a serious undertaking.

in the interim, what would you do in a 20 x 24 dedicatd HT with an existing 7.1 speaker setup

would you guys use a 5.1 DolbyHD track by itself and not engage the rear speakers, or would you engage a 7.1 surround mode to incorporate the rear speakers?

any guess if any upcoming big releases will include 7.1 dolbyhd or DTS Master 7.1? batman?

I have been fairly satisfied with the basic logic used by the Oppo players, but I'm leery of suggesting one option as inherently better than another without all the facts. Are you connecting via analog or HDMI? If it is analog, what processing options are available in the player? If it's HDMI, you probably have Pro Logic IIx available, and I'd feel pretty good about using it. Whether it's "better" than the straight 5.1 is hard to prove either way.

Since I haven't been buying many Blu-rays, I haven't been watching the release news closely enough to know what's coming. I bet there are some sites - and possibly even a thread or two at AVS - that track that, though.

i'm connecting my blu ray with 7.1 analog to my 990. the blu ray player is the panasonic bd-50. so do i have to aaply a dolby matrix in the blu rau player or can the 990 do it?

The BD50 actually simplifies things, although not in my favorite way. The multichannel analog output is only 5.1 anyway, so you can just split each surround output with a Y cable and connect to both side and rear inputs on the 990 (left surround to left side and back surround and the same for right surround). Since it lacks a 7.1 analog output, it renders the whole debate moot.

A second comment - I know of no surround receiver or processor that supports surround processing of the multichannel analog input. Not only would it require converting the signal back to digital (which can be done and is done), but it would also require knowing how many incoming channels were active - and there is no data stream or mechanism in place to identify that. If you are using analog connections, the source player really needs to do all of the surround processing.

would spliting the 5.1 to make 7.1 with a Y degrade sound quality or not at all?

i'm really looking foward to DTSHD and DolbyHD tracks. not sure if i should split the signal though.

PS. why do they make so many electronics in 7.1 if it doesn't really seem to be used on many fronts?

I have been splitting the rear channels for years when listening to SACD recordings. The ear (at least mine) cannot distinguish those channels enough to pick out the subtle differences caused by the split.