The CBIII HD itself cannot process internally beyond 48/24, but output on the digi out card is restricted to 48/16 due to HDMI licensing restictions. See my comments on other forum for the PWD integration question. This can be done, but the tricky part is keeping the mains volume levels that run through the PWD in synch with the center/surround/sub. Some sort of macro programming is required to do this.
Dirac release date is everyone's guess.
Dirac release date is everyone's guess.