Player decoding or Receiver decoding, that is the question

[axe79]

Here is a breakdown of the Vastlane chip family from Silicon Image

SI Vastlane 9132: (Gaming Transmitter) Supports Deep Colour but not the latest high-quality audio formats.
SI Vastlane 9133: (Dual Input Receiver) Enables HDTV's to display Deep Colour but does not support the latest high-quality audio formats.
SI Vastlane 9134: (Dual Input Transmitter) same abilities as the 9133 with additional support for the latest high-quality audio formats.

It is clear to see the evolution on these Chips from the 9132 put in the PS3 to the 9134 found in the newer crop of players.
It is now seen on the dedicated Blue ray players that they all do Bit streaming on the high quality audio formats.
Manufactures in the development research must have concluded that this path was one that needed to be offered.

"The flagship Sony S5000ES is also the first Sony player to feature a Precision Clock Conditioner, designed to reduce the effects of jitter."

Now if it wasn't a problem why address this?

Perhaps it needed to be sorted if the player was to be doing the processing itself and then sending it out!

"All the components used are of the highest quality and include high-performance capacitors and digital-to-analogue convertors."

In England this player is currently regarded as the best that has been reviewed.
I would be surprised if there was differences between Bitstream and LPCM on this player as the problems appear to have been designed out.

Another player that is flying off the shelves at the moment is the Panasonic DMP-BD55.
"Like the entry-level ’BD35, this player is also Blu-ray Profile 2.0, DivX and x.v.Colour compatible.So why does it cost more? The extra outlay gets you upgraded audio parts, including new capacitors, a new 192kHz/24bit DAC and a couple of tweaks to the HDMI output to help reduce jitter."

So Manufacturers are addressing jitter issues. Well, well.