One thing my old reciever did that I wish my 990 did was that it would automatically set to Dolby Digital when that format was available. Now that I can't use the On screen display, it would be real nice if I could set it to automatically go to dolby digital instead of having to turn around and look at the face of the 990 in the back of my room. I always figured that the 990 would be able to do it and I just had to enable that feature. I can't seem to do it. Every time I watch something that just has two channel sound, my Outlaw obviously switches to pro logic ll. Then when I watch something in DD, it stays with pro logic instead of switching to DD. It would be even better if I could have it always set to DD EX because I have a 7.1 setup.

Instead of turning around you might want to (if you have the space and wife will let you) have a secondary tv or a small monitor for OSD. I use mine when just listening to audio and the big tv is off.
my .02

I have a small T.V. in the bottom of my gear rack to use OSD. I just want the 990 to automatically switch to DD when it gets a digital signal. My old A/V reciever could do it. I thought the 990 would be able to as well.

Me too

It was a nice feature on my previous AVR.

When you get a DD signal, the 990 has to apply Dolby Digital. When it shows Pro Logic on the front panel in those cases, it is applying Pro Logic in addition to Dolby Digital to achieve either 5.1 or 7.1 (Once the planned firmware update arrives, we'll hopefully have a way to push a button on the remote and display the current mode, but for now the most surefire way is to hit the "SURR MODE" button on the front panel.)

I've not had any trouble with this with my unit, but it may be due to a combination of personal preference and some two-channel setup. My DVD and cable sources have all been "taught" to use my preferred method of getting 7.1 sound: DD 2.0 through 5.1 use a combination of Dolby Digital and Pro Logic IIx-C to get 7.1, DTS 5.1 uses DTS+PLIIx-C (I've also used DTS+Neo:6, which is what used to be called DTS-ES Discrete), and PCM sources use Pro Logic IIx-C. My two-channel listening is done with the same source device (typically my Yamaha DVD player, but sometimes the OPPO as well) through an audio source configured to use upsampling with PCM stereo inputs. This saves me from having to switch back and forth from upsample to PLIIx for PCM sources (on the rare instances where I get a video disc with PCM audio on it).

Hmm. Thanks as always Gonk. I usually make the 990 go on DD EX even if it is only regular 5.1 DD. Would I be better off going with DD with pro logic llx for the rear surrounds? Or should I continue to force the 990 to DD EX? Thanks.

I'd suggest trying both, but in general I suspect that PLIIx will do a better job - not only is it a more recent matrix processing mode, but it also capable of generating "discrete" left and right surround back channels rather than the mono signal generated for both surround back speakers by Dolby EX.

Thanks Gonk. I will try it.

I assume that if a DVD has Dolby Digital EX like the Star Wars movies, it is better to use DD EX. Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm assuming that Pro logic llx is better for programs with standard DD.

Actually I suspect that PLIIx would still work well for Dolby EX tracks too, since all EX is doing is matrixing the back channel into the surrounds. Be aware, though, that some EX-encoded discs will use a more aggressive form of the EX flag that will force the 990 (or any other properly-programmed Dolby Digital processor) to use EX whether you asked for PLIIx or not. Case on point: I have found that the Lord of the Rings EE discs use the more aggressive EX flag, so the 990 will use EX (and changing it manually will be overridden if the 990 is forced to re-acquire the signal because I changed inputs or went into the DVD menu and returned to the program), but the Revenge of the Sith disc is EX encoded without using the flag (so the 990 automatically treats it as a Dolby Digital track and applies PLIIx for me).

Now I see why it does that.

With LOTR I usually use DTS ES Discrete. Usually DTS sounds much better than DD however I have heard that with LOTR, the DD track is much more aggressive than the DTS. Usually I find the opposite to be true.