You've got to run straight through the 990 without additional surround processing, as the 990 can't apply PLIIx to a multichannel analog source. What remains to be seen is what options might exist internal to the player to provide matrix processing to expand 5.1 sources to 7.1. The 980H and 983H offer this ability in the form of a simply steering logic, and it would make sense for them to allow something similar in the BDP-83.