TV pass-thru question.

[Bolty]

If I send a 7.1 lossless audio signal via HDMI to my HDTV and then use a Digital RCA cable to send that to my 7.1 reciever............

What do I lose?
Is the lossless lost?
Is it still proper 7.1 separation?

Thanks.

[Bradman]

Originally Posted by Bolty

If I send a 7.1 lossless audio signal via HDMI to my HDTV and then use a Digital RCA cable to send that to my 7.1 reciever............

What do I lose?
Is the lossless lost?
Is it still proper 7.1 separation?

Thanks.

Your TV may or may not pass Dolby Digital 5.1(some do), but I believe that is the best you can hope for. Most likely,it will pass 2.0 PCM which then could be matrixed by your AVR to 7.1 channels(i.e. PLIIx). It would no longer be lossless in this case.
Best to send the audio/video path through the AVR first,then to the TV.

[jautor]

In that case you'll be better off using the SPDIF / toslink output of the BD player to connect to the AVR. At least you'll get DD5.1 / DTS core for sure. Routing through the TV, as Bradman said, you'll most likely get 2-channel stereo, and at best DD5.1.

[BIslander]

The SPDIF output from TrueHD and dts-MA tracks on Blu-ray sounds great, rivaling lossless in quality. So, you really aren't losing anything there in terms of sound quality. However, those outputs are limited to 5.1, meaning you will always need to use a DSP such PLIIx to generate 7.1.

Do not route BD audio though your TV since it will not pass DTS, which is the only kind of English language track on most BDs. The TV will tell the player to do the decoding itself and then downmix the resulting PCM to stereo, which is what will get sent to your AVR.

[Burson]

Originally Posted by Bolty

... new Blu-ray players with 7.1 analog out are rare and expensive.

Thanks.

Check out used PS3's. They have toslink.