Yes, gonk, I know.

I do think that if an "advanced" or "service" manual were produced, though, it should be included there.

I have my front speakers set to "large" and my center choices are "none", "small", and "large".

The bottom line is that the benefits you're describing are easily outweighed by the risks. And the "manufacturers of consumer electronics" you've named are not the typical Japanese or US A/V companies making receivers/pre-pros. This is why none of them allow (let alone encourage) hacking of surround processing or signal routing in their products. And those are the type of products and functionality we've been discussing. Likewise why companies like Dolby and DTS are not accomodating hackers in their processing/decoding technologies.

As I said earlier, I'm all for added options (at least ones that are useful and makes sense). But the functionality you're wanting would require an actual mixer, which I still think is your best bet if you want to re-mix soundtracks the way you've described. There's nothing wrong with what you want to do, it's just that a home theatre surround processor is simply the wrong tool for the job.

This is why none of them allow (let alone encourage) hacking of surround processing or signal routing in their products.

A lot of that has to do with licensing and implementation. Usually the license forbids disclosure or modification of the algorithm, even though parts of it might be conveniently refactorable. I've often thought that the core of such algorithms remain controlled, with the bits around input and output more flexible, so, for example, a licencee can share common output level control code (and downmixing) among several decoders. But, even here, a lot can be done to open a unit up. Witness the Roku HD1000, and their requirements to not expose CSS or Macrovision control, etc.

There's nothing wrong with what you want to do, it's just that a home theatre surround processor is simply the wrong tool for the job.

If you consider the pre/pro a fixed piece of equipment, for a single purpose, I'd be inclined to agree. But, it is rapidly becoming a platform for software (and, in some cases, hardware) enhancements for new data and physical interconnect formats -- more like a general purpose computer than a specific purpose device. Particularly, when a manuacturer provides a software and/or hardware upgrade mechanism, a strong argument can be made that it is beneficial to the end user if third parties can use that mechanism to add after-market value -- rather like what Etronics did for Sherwood and Outlaw, but at a further downstream level (and not to the same degree of customization, obviously).

Other manufacturers are starting to do this (though, as you keep on harping on, not consumer A/V equipment manufacturers -- yet). Your objections to license restrictions and consumer electronics supposedly being immutable fall before the Roku HD1000 (really, the closest to a consumer A/V device that I can think of), and other, hackable consumer products - OFA remotes being another area, IIRC.

The response from the A/V hacking community has been to do what it can with what it has -- general purpose PCs, often violating matrixed audio encoding patents to decode DD and other formats in software, on fast processors. The only concession they get are A/V component-style cases, instead of the ubiquitous beige box for their HTPCs. A proper platform, with the licensed bits closed, and the right stuff done in hardware, but the rest open, would be killer.

Someone complained that the 990 does not switch HDMI, or transcode it to component analog video. I can't see how it would be impossible to develop an add-in card, to replace one of the existing ones, that does this, either by Outlaw, or a third-party.

We've gotten pretty far off on a tangent here, and I think it may be appropriate to pause and reconsider where we are.

First, I don't think the Roku products are a good benchmark for what we should expect from a surround processor's "customizability" - it is a niche product whose central information source is a network connection to a PC, whereas a surround processor like the 990 is a focal point for mass-market analog and digital audio and video signals. There is a very different host of issues and concerns to deal with.

Second, the Model 990 is a product that was designed in what we might call the "classical" sense for a modern surround sound processor. That design does include a method for updating firmware (in the 990's case, there are two parallel methods: USB and serial). It was never intended to easily support wholesale changes like add-on daughter boards for things such as the HDMI/DVI transcoding (and I think the real issue is that component isn't transcoded to DVI, not the other way around - although either proposition comes with a not-insignificant price tag attached). Can changes like that be made? Sure - but it would cost less to just replace the 990 with a new model that was designed from the ground up with those capabilities or to have a separate component with those features. I think there are some ideas being tossed out here that could be great to implement on a product, but that are physically or financially impractical for an existing product like the 990. It might be beneficial for Outlaw to start evaluating the options for the sort of "open platform" processor that Rene is suggesting, but tying that to the 990 seems painfully difficult if not impossible.

It might be beneficial for Outlaw to start evaluating the options for the sort of "open platform" processor that Rene is suggesting, but tying that to the 990 seems painfully difficult if not impossible.

I dunno if it's as impossible as you might think, gonk. After all, Etronics developed two somewhat different products on the same platform so there is some degree of modularity already present in the 990 design, (though balanced outs and DVI switching were clearly hacks).

The burning qustions in my mind are: How much? And, can some of that trickle down to the hacker?

I would not expect it to be a big priority for Outlaw, but I would expect it to be something they should think about.

Oh, and as for the HD1000, it was marketted as displaying high-res pictures. Hackers made it play back HD video in real-time, weather information, etc.

Rene:

At the end of the day, what you want is a computer, not a consumer electronics device. YOU seem to ignore the many reasons why, while there is merit to what you are saying, it simply does not fit the broader profile of the consumer electronics customer.

To say that the addition of the DVI jacks and balanced inputs to the 990 from the original platform are "hacks" is a dis-service, even if you take the definition of "hack" in the original more benign sense, rather than in the more modern "hackers are evil-doers" sense. I'd bet that to get those things correct the Outlaws had to do a considerable amount of testing, not only to make sure the individual modules worked properly, but that they integrated properly with the base platform AND that by adding them there was nothing done that might upset things such as Dolby or DTS certification, UL approval or FCC compliance for EMI/RFI.

A high-quality audio/video product is quite a bit different than an OSS computer, and you just don't "throw in" something such as HDMI switching. The compliance for that, alone, is both a bear and time consuming, the components are NOT cheap and if all of that weren't enough, the standards are changing under our feet.

I'm sure the Outlaws are thinking about all of this -- it is clear that the seem to read these posts -- but at the end of the day you are still left with the considerable difference between a card-cage/backplane type product that runs on OSS or some sort of RTOS and deals more with digital signals vs the very specific nature of purpose-designed products running tightly controlled software and having to operate in an area that has no tolerance for noise, bad grounding, bugs, etc.

You can talk about the Roku all you like, but a surround processor isn't a Roku. Same for TiVo. Sure, there are hacks for it, some of which are done with TiVo looking the other way, but many not. Can you hack into your TV? Your DVD player (unless it is in a computer, but then by definition it isn't a consumer DVD player since it uses software based decoding)? Can you hack into the micro that runs your microwave oven? Your 'fridge? You get the picture. The answer is no for a good reason.

Etronics made those changes in the factory - replacing space reserved for amps in the R-965 receiver with balanced outputs and DVI switching - and then did a lot of software revisions to support the DVI switching and the expanded bass management (and to clean up the interface in general). I'm not saying changes like that are impossible, but do you see Sherwood offering to retrofit P-965's with these features? Nope - because the costs involved in retrofitting those existing units would be large enough that nobody would want to do it, making it easier to either stay with what they have or have a separate product entirely (call it the theoretical P-975). Making additional changes to the 990 by adding entirely new boards is certainly feasible, but unless they had capability built in to easily accept "slide in" cards (think ISA/PCI/AGP slots on PC's) it is going to entail work that 99+% of 990 owners are not going to be able to do themselves. As for letting folks dig into the 990's software and "hack" away at it, it is an interesting idea in theory that might yield some interesting features - if Outlaw were able to get permission to somehow develop an SDK, it would be a groundbreaking move, but I would not be a bit surprised if Etronics either refused to allow it or attached a pretty nasty price tag to it. And even if they did come up with an SDK of some sort, how many of the 990 owners would be able to make use of it. I'm a mechanical engineer - I know my limits, and re-writing the code that runs my surround processor is way beyond those limits. There are likely to be more owners of something like the Roku (with a much lower price tag plus a network interface and the more nebulous feature set of a media server to offer a greater degree of "hacking") who can dig into some software and come up with something new. Heck, look at the Xbox - a large enough user base achieved a great deal of "hacked" functionality without any official support (and, in some cases, active opposition) from Microsoft. (Of course, that could serve to reinforce the theory that "hacking" a surround processor is improbably - the Xbox is drawn almost directly from off-the-shelf PC hardware and software, but the equally or more common PS2 and Gamecube have not experienced the same "hacking" because they are designed like most consumer electronics.) Would Outlaw be better served fighting for a way to provide some hugely expanded software access for the benefit of a couple of users, or should they focus on making improvements (such as speaker configuration settings, or finding a way to incorporate nifty new discrete commands via RS-232 or third-party universal remotes) that benefit all users? I can understand your interest in the former, but I think the overall customer base will benefit much more from the latter.

Well said, Gonk!

I see this thread as:
1. Renee wants to Hack the 990, but wants the Outlaws to provided him with info to make his hack easy. No respectable Hacker asks for help!

2. If he really want to hack the 990, get a good axe and hack the hell out of HIS 990, and get off the Outlaw's case!