All problems seem related to the box as far as picture related problems. the newest thing seems to be a black screen (no audio either) for an indefinite amount of time leading to a reboot in order to get it to show a picture and sound. I was pointed to a thread on the AVS forum that says there's a choice in the audio settings to choose either HDMI (which will be a stereo signal) or Digital (which is supposed to force DD over the HDMI and/or Optical digital outputs). When I switched the audio to digital, I got no sound at all from the tv, but didn't try the 970. Tomorrow I will fire everything up, maybe reconnect the digital cable from the box to the 970, and see how it goes.

Box switched and got replies at other forums. Was told (Via AVS forum) that going into the settings and switching from HDMI to DD would force DD through the HDMI. Well, that doesn't work. Cable guy told me I had to route the optical from the box to the 970 directly, as does this post I found from someone quoting page 12 form my Samsung manual.....

Thanks for your help!!

This is most likely because the cable box is using HDMI to verify with the TV what is appropriate - and the TV is probably telling it "I have only two speakers - please give my PCM stereo!" At that point, it will override everything else. As I suggested earlier in the week, that means the HDMI cable will never be fed a DD bitstream by the box under these circumstances.

I agree with the cable guy in this case - routing the audio signal through the TV as you were initially trying to do is a very problematic arrangement when dealing with multichannel audio of any sort. Going straight from cable box to the 970 is really the way to go.

I already had it wired but didn't yet know about the digital settings in the cable box.... so I unplugged it. Will do it again tomorrow and switch the setting and see how it sounds.