I'm starting to look into doing some control of the 990 using the serial port. The omissions in the protocol are definitely disappointing. I'm definitely not going to pull of quite what I want.

The protocol lacks the following things, which would be _really_ helpful:

- Direct volume setting (one command to set volume to a specified level)
- Direct surround mode setting (one command to set the desired surround mode)
- Commands to read back and set each of the configuration parameters (e.g. trim levels, crossover points, speaker configs, etc.)


It looks like most of the config can be read back, but not changed in any easy way. The best I can figure is I might be able to get into the menu mode (not sure if there is a command for this, however), and have some software iteratively "navigate" through the menus and make changes effectively blindly. Ugh!

Same goes for the surround modes. Since there only exist commands for "next surround mode" and "previous surround mode," one must iteratively cycle through until the one you want is selected.

Same for volume: You can command the 990 to go to -40, -10, or +5, but from there you have to send multiple up/down commands to get to a level you want.

In short, it looks like it's merely an adaptation of the infrared commands rather than being a more generally useful serial protocol. I'm disappointed because I have grand plans to automate my setup to the point where I have preferred surround modes stored for my different media on my HTPC, and I'd like to have my automation system automatically set up the 990 before starting the film.

I also had hoped to be able to easily enable or disable the rear surrounds (switch between 5.1 and 7.1) because I have a compromised room setup with my rear row against the back wall. I'm unsure at this stage whether it will be acceptable to listen to the system with people in the back row with the rear surrounds blaring directly above their heads. My system will be used probably 50% of the time with just two people in the front row, so 7.1 is fine. I had hoped to automate switching to 5.1 mode if necessary.

I suspect the chances of getting Outlaw to extend the protocol are pretty low, but I had to make the request. It's disappointing because having the RS232 port gets us so close, but the lack of good protocol support keeps us so far away.