You are correct, most people expect to have lots of sound out of all speakers. I played around with my setup and I now have sound coming out of all speakers. I called Yamaha and they said normally only a small amount of sound comes out of the rears but if I want equal or near equal sound out of all speakers then I need to set the receiver on "six channel stereo" and indeed that works. Normally most of the time I will not be using the six ch stereo mode. I'm also a little confused about video upconversion. My tv has component video input so I ran a component video cable from the receiver to the tv. The yamaha guy said it does not improve the quality of the picture to go from analog VCR to the receiver and then component video cable to the tv. So I guess I don't understand what is being accomplished by having a component video cable? Anyway, thanks for your and every one else's help.