Uncompressed PCM Question

[CRMA]

I have a Yamaha HTR 5940 that I have hooked to the PS3. I am running audio with an optical cable right now. I dont have an HDMI input on my receiver.
I choose Uncompressed sound on the bluray and it shows a PCM icon on the receiver.
Am i hearing uncompressed audio through my speackers? Can I get it without an HDMI cable?

[owa]

I think it gets down-mixed to 2 channel PCM when using optical.

There is a thread that describes how you might be able to use lossless if you don't have a HDMI receiver. It's here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=17648

Edit: Actually, never mind on the link I posted. That's for people with a standalone blu-ray player. I just noticed you have a PS3 (as do I).

[CRMA]

thanks

[owa]

The below thread goes over a lot the audio choices for the PS3 and includes your situation also (near the end -- 2nd & 3rd page).

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=33741

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by CRMA

I have a Yamaha HTR 5940 that I have hooked to the PS3. I am running audio with an optical cable right now. I dont have an HDMI input on my receiver.
I choose Uncompressed sound on the bluray and it shows a PCM icon on the receiver.
Am i hearing uncompressed audio through my speackers? Can I get it without an HDMI cable?

Because you are using an optical cable, your receiver is down-mixing the audio to a stereo PCM track. In turn, it is being PLXIIed into a fake surround output. The rear speakers are, for the better part, using front channel information to emulate the rear sound... and, even them, both rear speaker sound streams are almost identical to one another (not much isolation). You are better off using the Dolby 5.1/EX or DTS 5.1/ES tracks. Trust me... with my old system, I thought that I was in my glory with the PCM tracks playing. They just sounded louder. But, when I experimented after 6 months, I came to realize that the PCM track wasn't as active or accurate in the rear satellites as the regular Dolby and DTS tracks. So, don't be fooled!

[BlueRevenge]

Originally Posted by owa

Edit: Actually, never mind on the link I posted. That's for people with a standalone blu-ray player. I just noticed you have a PS3 (as do I).

Yeah with a PS3 the OP is screwed in this situation as the PS3 has no capacity for multi-channel analog output (something I always thought was rather stupid as pretty much every other BD player does).

Evenso, most (if not all) standalones only output 5.1 analog, meaning when 6.1/7.1 tracks start becoming available the standalones won't be outputting all the channels via analog either.

As Petra said above, it's better to use the standard DD/DTS tracks if they are available on a particular BD.

I'm guessing from the replies above that the PS3 can't transcode LPCM or TrueHD to DD/AC-3? (I thought it could but then I've never used one enough to know.)