What was the point that Outlaw made with the announcement about the 997 so early. The unit is not even in production.
I realize that fellow Outlaws' have been choping at the lips about the arrival of the 997 with all of the questions floating around on this forum (myself included)but I think Outlaw should have just remained silent about any thoughts of when the 997 will be available.
We will be lucky if the unit is available by March.
I know this sounds like I am complaining but I am still remaining loyal to Outlaw. I was approached by the sales person who sold me my B&W's and he made me a pretty good offer on the Integra 9.9 that I DID refuse.
The not knowing a definte date about the Outlaw 997 just makes it tempting to pull the trigger.
Loyalty I was told is rewarded.
I cannot wait for my reward.

I was one of those chomping at the bit in large part due to HDMI and the new sound processing.

Having purchased a BD player over the holidays I have to say I am very impressed with my 990's ability to handle the the sound via the analog connections. I am not impatient anymore and will most likely wait a while after the 997 comes out to make an upgrade.

I agree.
I had a chance to play with a Sony BDP-S550 that a friend of mine bought and I too was totaly impressed with the sound via the 7.1 analog connections.
I am not even thinking about the 997 just for this reason.
I realize that there will a lot of additional features with the 997 but I am very happy with my good ole 990.
I am just waiting in the wings for Oppo's BDP-83 Blu-ray player to hit the market and then I am set.
For a while at least.

I've been waiting to update/upgrade for quite a while now. I wanted to move to Outlaw a while back, but couldn't justify spending money on a product running DVI instead of HDMI. HDMI was new, but clearly would replace DVI in time. Outlaw did the right thing by not jumping to the early versions of HDMI, but it has been a long wait for them to have such a product. For me, my PS3 is my Blu-Ray player. So with no 7 channel analog outputs, the only way to get the lossless audio formats to my sound system is through HDMI. I think the 997 will reward my patience, so I sit and wait...patiently...

That Sony is the unit I bought. I was also waiting for the Oppo but a sub $300 deal on the Sony became available and I couldn't wait.

Since it's coming out in 2009, they should have called it the Outlaw 999.

I'm still in the Outlaw 1050 world, and I recently purchased the Panasonic BD-55 with the analog connections. I'm VERY happy with the sound I've been getting from analog. I might add a 7125 in the next few months, but I'm not in much of a rush for the 997.

They are following the Microsoft model.