hey gonk, like always the first to reply, thanks for making the effort to look up the specs on the reciever. This helps alot in making the decision,the reciever will be in fact christmas gift for father in law and i just wanted to make sure he can use the new audio formats as well down the road. One more thing,if you looked at the reciever do you think it is a decent buy for just over $500 online?

thanks