Yea that's for sure, there's so many formats out there that it makes your head spin... and I'm an enthusiast and work in the industry.

Guess the solution is to get a BluRay player that has the 7.1 analog output, pipe it to my 990 for now.

Then, get the 997 when it comes out which has TrueHD/DTS- HD Master Audio and hook up via HDMI...

In the meantime what about something like a PS3- which does not have the analog 7.1. I'm guessing the best compromise would be the optical output... since the 990 does not have HDMI...