Correct me if I’m wrong …

Ladies and gents, for any digital signal at least two processes exist, the moving of the data from point A to point B and the manipulation and/or interpretation of the data at point A and point B.

Now if the 990 has the bandwidth and the bus width to handle either DVI or HDMI, but in that process the 990 doesn’t have to manipulate or interpret the data being passed along, then no matter how the formats evolve, developing new ways to create, format, manipulate and interpret the data, the 990 could just pass that data along in the same form it was received. Can't the 990 just be a switch for any data that fits the "pipeline?"

A related aside:

In the professional environments I work, almost all of the live, real time manipulation of audio and video signals is handled separately. An audio-follow-video router might be the only exception.

There have always been pros and cons to separates versus all-in-ones in the audio world. I think the day will come when we’ll want the processing of audio and video to be separate with some form a control data linking the devices so that they can act in a coordinated manner. In the same way that I can keep my 770 amp operating even if I upgrade to the 990 from my 950, eventually I’ll want to be able to upgrade my audio and video processing separately. The Outlaws could have made a real jump on the competition by either separating the video and audio processing into two devices or by making the video and audio processing modular in the same case and hence separately upgradable.

Alas, if Outlaw's product varied that much from everyone else's product in concept, even if it were better, many consumers might avoid something "too different."