I'm a happy Outlaw 990 owner, and am currently taking a very close look at the Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu-ray Disc player. I have two questions regarding this potential combination of player and preamp/processor that I'm hoping someone can answer:

(1) It is my understanding that the only way to experience 7.1 channel TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio with my Outlaw 990 is to find a Blu-ray player that can decode and send these formats to my 990 over eight RCA cables... obviously HDMI is a non-starter for the 990, and digital coax and optical don't have the required bandwidth. Correct?

(2) Panasonic has promised an April 2007 firmware update that will add TrueHD and DTS-HD support to the DMP-BD10. But has anyone heard whether the DMP-BD10 (after the firmware update) will be able to send Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio as transcoded PCM over all 7.1 channels (assuming that the Blu-ray disc is authored in 7.1 channel surround sound)? (I've read some conflicting information that seems to suggest that only 5.1 channels of TrueHD/DTS-HD are possible over analog; i.e., you lose two of the surround channels.)

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this very confusing high-def audio format situation. Thanks!

You are correct that the only way to get 7.1 TrueHD and DTS-HD is with a player that supports 7.1 analog output. You may also want to check into the availability of 7.1 mixes (early discs were all being mixed as 5.1 because that's what the sound engineers use for theatrical soundtracks) and whether the player can apply processing like Pro Logic IIx to get 7.1 from those 5.1 sources. The limited access to 7.1 output has driven numerous early adopters to actually use splitters to send the surround channels to both side and rear surround inputs on their receiver and processor's 7.1 analog inputs. I can see no reason that analog output would be limited to 5.1 from 7.1 sources, but if the player doesn't support matrix decoding with 5.1 sources then you're still stuck.

Thanks gonk! At least now I know what to look for in a player.

If anyone has insider information on whether the upcoming DMP-BD10 firmware update will include TrueHD/DTS-HD support over the analog 7.1 outputs, please speak up!

I have the 990/7125 combo and the Panny player and this is the very reason I bought this player over the Pioneer Elite. The Panny player is the only one with 7.1 analog outs. The firmware upgrade for dts hd and dolby truehd will be available in March/April per Panasonic.

Also, a new firmware upgrade was released just this week that's supposed to give a better picture thru hdmi, quicker chapter skipping and a few other things.I haven't done that upgrade yet but will soon. You can see the firmaware info at avs.com

Thanks! I'm pretty sure you meant avsforum.com, and yes, I've been following the firmware version 1.4 thread with great interest.

Let me ask you something: Do you think the upcoming audio codec upgrade will be FULL TrueHD support (i.e., 7.1 channels and not stereo TrueHD like some other players have)? I know Panasonic has made a commitment to this firmware update, but I have not heard any commitment that the TrueHD support won't be a hobbled, half-baked two-channel update.

The only case I've heard about of a company limiting TrueHD support to two-channel was the Toshiba HD-A1/XA1, and both of those received firmware updates quite some time ago (early fall?) to extend the TrueHD support to multichannel (although for analog output it would be 5.1 since both players only offered 5.1 analog outputs). I'd certainly hope that Panasonic would only support TrueHD with multichannel.

yes, meant avsforum.com The firmware update will allow you to play 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 hi rez audio thru the analog outputs so yes you'll be all set in a few months I can't wait to check out the dts master audio tracks on the Fox releases!