I know you're in Australia and need 220/240, but my point is that they may not be able to justify the cost since they don't sell more than a handful of any given model outside of North America.

What integration services do you want the LAN for?


I expect that they know what the big names are doing, but the places they are best situated to improve on them are in things like analog audio performance and ease of use. If they try to get into a feature list contest with one of the giants, they will lose.


Keep in mind that no HDMI devices need to occupy a coaxial, optical, or analog audio connection unless you just want it to. That leaves all six digital inputs free for non-HDMI devices. Compare that to a product like the Model 990, which had no HDMI support (so all sources that wanted a digital connection needed to use coaxial or optical) and a total of four rear panel optical, one front panel optical, and two rear panel coaxial inputs. That's exactly the same total number of rear panel digital inputs on both processors. Add in the HDMI ports and the ARC channel on the HDMI output, and you have a total of 12 possible digital inputs into the Model 978.


Why not scale s-video to higher resolutions? Why rule out scaling composite video? Both s-video and composite video are 480i native connections, while component can be anywhere from 480i to 1080i (or, in a few really atypical cases, 1080p). Practically speaking, the only sources whose best output is s-video will also have a composite output that works just fine. Most Model 978 owners are going to be focusing on HD video sources, though, with at most a couple legacy devices around to share the three component and two composite inputs (or three composite inputs, if you could the front panel). Personally, I've got an old DVD recorder (component video and optical outputs), a Wii (component video and analog audio outputs), and a children's educational game device (composite video and analog audio outputs) - everything else that would get connected would use HDMI. There's an old VCR, too, but it's connected directly to the DVD recorder as I only use it to archive VHS tapes to DVD.


There's no reason to design a chassis around future products - you design it for the product in front of you. From that perspective, I see no reason to enlarge the Model 978. Making it taller just makes it harder to fit into people's furniture. The rear panel benefits a bit from the shift to HDMI, as it is less cluttered than the Model 990's was. That makes connecting things to it easier, which is nice.

Redman6,
The 978 is 98% complete!! No one in their right mind thinks it can be redesigned to accommodate one person in a galaxy FAR, FAR away. I would not expect you to purchase this equipment since it does not even come close to meeting the gaming requirements you so obviously seek. Although I would expect you could much more easily convert 220 vac to 120 vac than Outlaw could design that feature into their gear. There must be some gear sold in AU or NZ that uses that voltage especially since it is so close to the Asian markets. Why not just accept that facts that the 978 is as it has been advertised and will not be what you are suggesting.

s-video has a bandwidth limitation which restricts its upscale I would love to see it it upscale to 1080 though physical medium will likely not permit it..

it's just not for gaming I'm looking to use the 978 for,I still have other components that can use digital connections...


the idea to more hdmi as to allow more components over hdmi, looking at covering atleast a couple of consoles, brd player, dvd player plus paytv and iptv..

lack of either usb/lan limits firmware updates aswell, since hdmi 1.4a is still under development I would say looking at upgrading via hdmi may cause more issues..

the 120/240 needs to be standard, I can't see people spending cash on a 1,500-2,500 pre-amp then spending another $500-1,500 on a step down power transformer...

it's nice to live in the US where these things can be picked up on the cheap...


xeno, if the 978 is 98% complete why is it going to take sometime within the 4th quarter to release it, what's happening within the last 2% is it hardware or is it firmware???

this is what we don't know, I tried to give my honest opinion of what specs I got in my recent email said...

go and compare it with what's out in the market within both avr and pre-pro markets to see what is on offer..

I think most members will agree that it is nice to live in the United States. Since we live here though, we are accustomed to using our standard power supply and frequency. House voltage is usually supplied as 220vac and geared down to 120vac by going from one hot side to neutral which gives us 120vac without a transformer involved. Since this is the standard for everyone in the states, all of the gear designed for the states uses 120vac. No one uses 220vac for anything other than electric clothes dryers, household HVAC and cooking. It is unreasonable to expect a small manufacturer like Outlaw to provide gear which would not be in demand by anyone in the states. I am sure there is some gear built by the larger concerns like Sony, D&M holdings and others that meet your needs. Check out this link for a converter for 220 to 120 vac -- less than $70 gets you what you need with having the rest of us pay for it too when we don't need it.

http://www.nine220volts.com/power-conver...own-transformer

Check out this link for gear designed to meet your specific needs: http://www.world-import.com/avamps.htm
Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer all support 220 vac and even 50hz if needed.

The 978 is 98% complete!! The remaining items have to do with SOFTWARE integration. The HARDWARE is done. That means the rear panel is what it is, and won't change. There is a USB port on the front of the 978 for updates and will let us connect the standard stuff into it. I personally am glad to see the absence of any S-video connections in favor of more high end stuff. This pre-pro is for Audio/Video enthusiasts and appears to provide all the needed bells and whistles. It even includes a phono stage with MM/MC support, something that is lacking in much of the newer gear out there. In short, the 978 design stage is over. The Outlaws are into the testing phase and lets hope it goes well. I am very disappointed in the new release date and agree that the 998 is way overdue for an update. I have moved on from Outlaw as far as my new Pre-pros go but I wish them success.

just to point out this out the unit is supporting plIIz where is the extra outputs for it??

it would seem silly to use xlr for primary and rca for fw/fh

Even though there are many AVRs and AVPs out there that boast 9 or 11 channels and support the front wide and height channels, most support is at the expense of the rear surround channels. You only need 7 channels out because the rear surrounds become the wides or the highs. It is a trade off and very little source material supports seven channels of anything in a native format. Using the XLR outputs would not accomplish much without some additional switching because it would only duplicate the RCA output so the wides or highs would not get a different spatial signal.

Residential stuff is mostly 208V/120V, although 220V is sometimes in the mix. The bigger issue is that most countries that use 220V instead of 120V also use 50Hz instead of 60Hz. Some months back, we had a pretty in-depth discussion of the subject (starting here). Companies that sell to Europe and the US (Sony, Denon/Marantz, Onkyo/Integra, Panasonic, etc.) have to provide both power supply options. In some cases, that may involve a single design with a power supply that works for both. In other cases, it means two different power supply designs that are used for separate North American and European models.

XenonMan's right that hardware is now done - it sounds like they're tweaking the finish on the front panel, which supports the logical conclusion that hardware is locked in.

PLIIz is being supported by offering the option for either front height or surround back channel output. Therefore, the surround back pre-amp output can also serve as the front height output. As discussed several times in the past, many PLIIz and Audyssey DSX products have been released using eight-channel DAC's, thus requiring users to select whether to set up a 7.1 system with surround back speakers or a 7.1 system with front height speakers. Outlaw is doing that by building the processor with a 7.1 pre-amp output. Others (like Marantz with the AV7005) include separate outputs for surround back and front height, but you can't use both simultaneously.

The unit has USB on the front panel specifically for firmware updating. HDMI v1.4a is actually pretty well settled now, but surround processors have a whole lot of audio and video processing software that needs tweaking.


A company that only sells in the US and Canada has not reason to pay extra to design a power supply for 240V.


Firmware on something this complex is not easy to get right. Beta testing and developing a suitable production firmware takes time. I've beta tested every disc player that OPPO Digital has developed since the DV-981HD back in 2006, and beta testing for them takes anywhere from three months to six months or more. For the Blu-ray players, it's been closer to six months pretty consistently. In those cases, the beta testers always had final hardware when we started - or maybe had a single hardware revision early in the testing process. That last 2% is hard - and important to get right.

Gonk is correct about the last bit of software/firmware being very difficult. We used a Microsoft recommended third party to port Flashlite to our product's multimedia processor and it took (what we thought would be a straightforward process) them MONTHS to complete - VERY frustrating. AND, when you make a change to firmware, nearly every time it results in a bug in some other area. Firmware has caused almost 100% of product delays and hardware almost zero.