I hear you, and I understand what you are saying.

Here's my dilemma:

Let's say I've recorded the Sopranos in HD, which is broadcast with a DD 5.1 soundtrack. What is the material difference between:

a) Having the TiVo output the DD 5.1 soundtrack and having the 990 apply PLIIx-M processing.

b) Having the Tivo output PCM and having the Outlaw apply PL-IIx-M processing to the PCM stream.

Here's what I think the answer is:

Dolby Digital has discrete channels of information and provides a separate signal for each speaker depending on the Dolby Digital mode (Most commonly seen as 2.0 and 5.1 in cable broadcasts).

PCM from the TiVo provides a matrixed signal. In this scenario, the TiVo is either processing the DD 5.1 signal and downmixing to stereo OR simply taking the PCM soundtrack from the broadcaster and passing it to the 990 instead of the DD signal. This requires the processor to create the surround channels using a scheme like Neo:6 or PLIIx.

I know that Neo:6 and PL-IIx can both do a very good job creating a 5.1 or 7.1 surround field from two channel input but I really do want my 990 to be able to work as my 970 did and lock on to signals and decode them properly regardless of the format.

Thanks for your input and I will be taking a listen to some soundtracks output by the TiVo in both DD and PCM to see what difference I can discern (if any).

I'll post my impressions here in case anyone's interested.