Anyone been able to dim the front panel display with the new firmware? I've resorted to having the display turn off but it kind of freaks me out to look over and see everything off.

There is a nasty bug in the sub trim which people need to be aware of if they value their subwoofer. Otto actually found it and I have verified it. See this thread for the details. This explains why my bass was so far off when I was testing the stereo bypass above.

off all the processors I've ever used.. the 990 is the toughest to correctly dial in the subwoofer to proper levels.

Once set up... it's ok. But i've spent more time dailing in the sub than i ever have before.

NEO:6 used to be limited to two-channel sources, but it wasn't able to compete well with Pro Logic IIx that way (since PLIIx can extend 5.1 material to 6.1/7.1) and it was being used in the background anyway as "DTS ES Matrix." By the time Outlaw shipped the 990, DTS had changed their standard for DTS ES and NEO:6 so that NEO:6 can be applied to multichannel sources to generate a surround back signal. There are some DTS-ES Discrete discs (Lord of the Rings EE being very notable examples along with Gladiator; Star Wars only uses Dolby Digital EX); those discs contain flags that automatically enable DTS-ES decoding to properly extract the surround back signal. Since no DVD players have offered 7.1 analog outputs (even the new HD-DVD players don't, although they should), DVD players have never included DTS ES or Dolby EX decoders - you must pass the digital bitstream unaltered to your receiver or processor.

The 990 will auto-detect any flagged DTS-ES or Dolby Digital EX content and process it as required by the flag. DTS has been pretty consistent about this from the beginning of DTS-ES's life, while Dolby's approach to the mastering of EX flags in soundtracks has been a slow evolution - early EX discs weren't even identified as such in software or on the packaging, and there are still newer discs that don't use the flag. Most Dolby EX discs and all DTS ES discs (at least all the ES discs I've seen) are flagged, and the 990 will obey those flags automatically. For unflagged Dolby Digital EX discs, the 990 will assume it is a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and treat it just as it would any other track - which in my case means applying Pro Logic IIx processing. Star Wars discs typically don't seem to include the flags, since I haven't had Dolby EX override my PLIIx preference with them.

Was this even promised? I'd like the feature as well, but I thought it was ruled out for the hardware.

Maybe I'm on crack but I could have sworn the previous FW let you have three levels of brightness.

There's a display time out setting (which has always been there), but there still isn't (and wasn't as far as I can tell) a way to change the brightness.

I'm on crack then I could have sworn you could dim the display using the up and down buttons on the front panel. Did the 950 have this?

The only time the display dims for me is when I set the sleep timer. It worked the same way before the update unless I just didn't know how.

Thanks Gonk. I understand fully now. So the trick I suppose is to set the dvd player so that is passes through the bitstream unaltered, and let the 990 work with the DTS-ES. I'll try this as soon as I'm back up and running (redoing the theatre room right now).

Back onto this firmware update - Scott can you tell us if the latest firmware - 1 is available, in case I load in the latest and wish to roll back to what I had before?