Been a while since I've been at the forum, so a little wet behind the ears on new equip.

I just bought a Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu Ray. I connected it via the 7.1 channel inputs (2 fronts, 2 rears, center, sub) on 990 and (2 fronts, 2 rears, center, sub) out of the Panny. Set the DVD input to analog; I go straight from the Panny to a Sony KDS-60A2000 TV via HDMI (no 990 in the path). on startup, I figured I would set the 990 to 5 ch stereo on the 990 menu, but I was just getting a constant low volume output; So after looking in the manual (good idea!)I set the Outlaw remote to 7.1 Direct and all seems to be working fine (although I can't remember if it was giving me an audio output on the Outlaw LCD,i.e., Dolby Digital, DTS, etc). I set the Panny audio setup (Digital Audio Output) to output bitstream (other choice was PCM) for all the various choices (DTS, DD, etc.)....just wondering if this should be the right way to set it up...
The choice of either PCM or Bitstream was a little confusing to me so I went with the bitstream setting.

My understanding is that the 990 will do the processing with it set up this way. Any input from you people would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

The BD30 doesn't have any onboard decoding of the new audio formats (DD+, TrueHD, or DTS-HD). For PCM tracks, you'll want to use the 7.1 Direct input - in which case, the Panasonic's digital output settings are irrelevent, although the speaker settings (stuck under "TV/Device Settings" for some reason) are going to be important. You'll want to set all speakers to large, the sub to on, and leave all of the channel trim and distance settings zero'ed (the 990 will take care of all of that for you). And when using the 7.1 Direct input, you will not see any processing modes engaged on the 990 because none are applicable - it is just managing the multichannel analog signal that is has been given.

The scheme I just described would work for any case you might encounter (except for TrueHD and DTS-HD tracks, which the BD30 can only handle by outputting a bitstream over HDMI v1.3, something we 990 owners can't do anything with). If you wanted to get a bit more complex, however, there are a number of cases where there is an alternate approach available. For discs without a PCM track, the only tracks that you have access to are legacy or core DD and DTS tracks, no matter how you have the player set up. You can use either the BD30's internal decoder or the 990's decoder. Perhaps ironically, using the 990's decoder provides the cleaner and simpler overall signal path. If you want to do a comparison, you could hook an optical or coaxial cable from the BD30 to the 990 and assign that to a spare input, then use that input for any Dolby Digital tracks you encounter. I'd also set all of the digital audio outputs to bitstream and disable secondary audio - otherwise, the internal decoder will be used and the digital output will be downmixed PCM stereo. At this point, toggling between the spare input and the 7.1 Direct input would serve to compare the BD30's decoder with the 990's decoder.

By the way, I've recently picked up a BD30 myself and have spent just a little time with it. In my case, however, the 7.1 Direct input is already occupied by two formats for which I have more software, so I'm connecting it via optical only.

Thanks Gonk-

Basically I bought the unit for its video strengths (wanted to get into HD disc content), which are outstanding. I wasn't ready for how good the sound output would be with the BD30 (I put Planet Earth in for my first disc) or should I say, how well the 990 would process that output. That's been one of my high points with the unit (990),i.e., since I listen to a lot of analog CD, besides HDTV.

I set up the speakers on the BD30 as you suggested; in fact, that was the way it was out of the box.

Again, thanks.

Gonk, In the case of a Panasonic DMP-BD10AK with decoders built-in for TrueHD & DTS-HD, would you set them for "PCM" & not "Bitstream" while feeding the 990's 7.1 direct-input???

When using the multichannel analog output, the digital output settings ("PCM" vs. "bitstream") don't come into the mix because the output is not digital. The multichannel analog output always gets the signal produced by the internal decoders (Dolby Digital, DTS, DD+, or TrueHD).