It's a shame that S&V mispelled PeterT's name.

I have a few questions about this that I think need some thought before we start re-wiring our rooms. How do existing 7.1 tracks work out in a system like this? Do you need to downmix to 5.1 and then apply PLIIz processing to that 5.1 track? Or do you need a 9.1 receiver/processor that supports that 7.1 track in its entirety and uses PLIIz to expand to 9.1? If it's the former, I see a lot of existing 7.1 installations that will have little interest in adding it. If it's the latter, I don't see Outlaw being able to support it in the 997 at any point - firmware updates can't add additional output channels, even if the DSP section can handle the processing. That means we'll need to wait for a future generation. We'll also need more channels of amplification, which is sort of a pain (I've already got three power amps).

Here's an oddball tangential thought, though. The original Pro Logic processing could be achieved in the analog domain, and I think there were even some analog PLII circuits at one time. If the same is true of PLIIz, can you picture an outboard box that the left, center, and right channels go through that applies "PLIIz" processing to them and spits out left, center, right, left height, and right height channels? Heck, you could even build in a modest two-channel power amp to drive the height channels...