I was just poking around a bit at AVS and came across something that I hadn't seen mentioned previously (probably because I hadn't been keeping a particularly close eye on the nuances of Blu-ray player features and quirks lately). First, Sony's new BDP-S300 offers an HDMI v1.1 output and no decoding of TrueHD or DTS-HD MA (HDMI v1.3 had been widely expected, as I suspect had TrueHD decoding). That bit of news led me to a real curious tidbit: the only two HDMI v1.3 sources presently on the market (the Playstation3 and Samsung BD-P1200) do not support output of TrueHD or DTS-HD MA bitstreams. The hardware allows it (as required by the HDMI v1.3 spec), but both devices will require a firmware update to enable that capability. Nobody seems to know when such firmware updates might appear. Now I'm not one to shed too many tears over the presence (or lack of presence) of HDMI v1.3, but this brings up two issues that seem worth pointing out:

1. If you are buying an HDMI v1.3 receiver or processor right now, you should recognize that you are buying that TrueHD and DTS-HD MA decoding but will not be able to employ that decoding with any source for some indeterminant period of time. At least for now, you are still going to need to rely on the HD-DVD or Blu-ray player to decode the new formats (which means you still won't be able to decode DTS-HD MA, as no players support decoding it yet).
2. I don't doubt that there are ways to test and certify that receivers or processors with TrueHD or DTS-HD decoding are performing that decoding properly, but it's certainly going to be limited testing - possibly nothing but bench testing. I think it's reasonable to say that such tests can and will miss things. Once HDMI v1.3 sources start getting firmware that allows bitstream output of these formats, we may see some extra bumps in the road relating to that decoding. And this will affect anybody trying to roll out an HDMI v1.3 receiver or processor in the near future.

As I've said before, the mess that is HDMI has only served to further muddy the already significant mess that the current format war has dropped onto the market. This simple issue (not having firmware to enable TrueHD and DTS-HD MA bitstream output on two players) is just one more reminder of why I feel for the companies (like Outlaw) trying to develop good products in the present environment.