I talked to Outlaw about this today and didn't really get anywhere. They said that first of all, very few people reported having this problem. Next, if the problem is on a sat or cable input, it's most likely that device, not the 970. I tried to argue this as my Motorola DVR worked fine with my Yamaha reciever. He still claimed that unless I'm experiencing problems on the DVD input where you have a steady audio stream, the DVR is at fault.

Then I brought up the possibility of upgrading to a 990 since this problem hasn't be reported with it. He said that would be fine and should work OK. If that's the case, that means the 970 still has issues.

At his suggestion, I reset the 970 back to factory defaults and while setting it back up with my calibration DVD, I still get audio drops when switching from DTS discrete to Dolby Digital for example. While I'm not happy about rewarding a company with a defective product with $400 more, I don't really have much choice as I'm passed my 30 so a refund is out of the question. I'm thrilled with the 7125 and other processors cost considerable more so it looks like I'll have to get a 990 to fix this.