I've seen some others pose similar theories back when the UMC initially launched and the reports from Dan Laufman that it was working "perfectly" in December were proven to be inaccurate once the unit reached consumers. The firmware developers were contracted from India and the hardware was built in China. If there were hardware changes that caused things to go awry, it would have been easier to fix by keeping the code that worked "perfectly" in December and have the factory return to the original specs. That wouldn't fix the design decisions like bass management and video pass-through, but it would help with the other issues. They have focused solely on firmware, though, so I think the likelihood of an unannounced hardware change in production units being the culprit is slim to none.

you never know Gonk..

playing catch up can be a bitch at times..

If there's a USB port for upgrades, how about the ability to plug in an external drive with movies on it?? Or the ability to stream movies over the network (if it'll have an ethernet port)?? I would LOVE these features and the receiver would truly be the heart of my home theater!!

Feature request:

A quick, one button push OSD screen with all pertinent source signal info, including video resolution, bit depth, audio sample rate, codec, bit depth, channel count and most importantly, for compressed codecs, the dialog normalization offset/value.

Excellent request! I'd love to see that too.

I like this as well. I've long desired a button that reports input audio format (including channel count), current audio processing, input video resolution, and output video. I'd want it to show up on the front panel, since I normally disable on-screen pop-ups like this, in which case it would tend to be either a single button that cycles through different bits of data with multiple pushes or a single button that triggers a series of front panel reports automatically shown in series. The 885 has a button that does a little bit of this, but it stops short of what I'd like.

Would be nice if there was some sort of parametric EQ or tone control that was independent from the room correction system, so both could be used together. The room correction would be automated; used to minimize the room's unwanted contributions. The PEQ would be manual; letting you adjust the overall sound to your personal taste.

More useful with music than with movies. The film industry has standards that mixing rooms adhere to. No such reference in the music industry. Heck, I have garage band CDs that were mixed in... well, a garage. (Must have sounded bright in there, because the high frequencies are completely rolled off.) Access to a PEQ would help compensate for that.

I like this as well. But I would want a setup or at least a toggel feature that allows for either on screed display or front panel display so that both the on-screen-display-supporters and the front-panel-display-supporters can benefit from the feature. Additionally, as I stated before, I would want the on-screen-display information to be displayed in ghost fashion over the existing video being displayed.

Outlaw has traditionally designed OSDs that don't obscure the primary display but offer a secondary display format for tech. info. I'd like to see this same philosophy followed. If you want to see all of this, buy a secondary display, don't burden your family and guests with it.

Sanjay.... That is a great request. I wonder if there is an easy way to implant this on top of Trinnov processing......

FEATURE REQUEST:

HDMI pass through when the SSP is in standby, either last selected or assignable. Great for sat/cable sources when the family doesn't want to fire up the system.