I never set a region on the dune- I dont have the optical drive- just reading from NAS. I dont think it asks for a region either. I will check later.

George, my connection goes like this: Oppo->HDMI->Radiance->HDMI->HD621->3 coax (smartlink I believe is the M word)-861. The Dune is the exact same. I have checked the settings in the 861 and HD621 and they are identical for the input I use for the Oppo and the Dune (currently labelled HDDVD as its replaced my HDDVD which just stopped working). I will double check all of this but my memory is pretty clear and what it says- when you press the display button on the 861 I see "MHR Movie6 96k" with the Oppo and with the Dune I see "PCM Movie6 96k"- and it required an update to the firmware of the HD621 and the Radiance to get that to work properly for the Dune, prior it would only give me "Movie2".

mjt5282, Not really. Meridian can always update the DD/DTS decoding in the 861/ other processors because that is software based. But the 861, etc do not accept HDMI. The job of the HD621 is to take HDMI and grab the audio and send it along either as speakerlink (cat 5e looking wires that can handle 8 channels at I think 96/24 is the max) or smartlink (apologies if I have the names wrong) which is 6 channels over 3 coax cables. The V6 of the 861 can take the speakerlink 8 channel input, the prior versions are limited to the 3 coax cables (2 channels of 96/24 per channel). The 861 accepts PCM audio for these setups. So it has to be decoded somewhere prior to the HD621 because it does not perform any decoding. What it will do is to upsample and apodize 44 or 48khz sources- so say the file I play on my Dune is a regular DD 5.1 file, it gets decoded as 5.1 channels of PCM at 48khz and the HD621 I believe upsamples it and also applies the apodizing filter. Its a nice tweak- especially for 2 channel CDs. So the place that Meridian would have to apply the decoding would be in the HD621 or other product and I dont think the HD621 currently could support this.

As to Cable or Sat TV- Im sure youre right- Im just curious- just want to see whats out there- and I also think as these companies get more competitive, I wouldnt be surprised to see them begin to offer some channels with these features- remember when having stereo on a TV show was a big deal? Then it was surround sound (DPL) and then it was DD 5.1.

The biggest downside to the Dune so far is simply the interface which is really basic but I believe that can be resolved via this MyMovies software which I am not yet up to playing with.

George, is there a good place to post images to so I can show you whats going on?

Best regards,
Jerry
Main System: 861v6, DSP8000s in corners, DSP7000s Center and Sides, 1-9 humans.