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.