Playing a 6.1 or 7.1 track on a 5.1 setup

[dsimmelink]

Good morning,

I have a PS3 as my blu-ray player going to a Yamaha RX-V663 receiver powering an Energy 5.1 surround speaker system.

To avoid always changing settings I go ahead and always let the PS3 do the audio processing and send it via PCM it to my receiver.

My concern is for movies that have 6.1 or 7.1 surround tracks. So if I understand correctly, the PS3 decodes the audio and sends it in its raw form to my Yammy. So from there is it safe to assume that my receiver will correctly downmix the 6.1 or 7.1 track into my 5.1 system? Or do I need to change any settings to get this to happen?

I would obviously much rather have a properly downmixed LPCM or TruHD (or whatever the uncompressed case may be) 6.1 or 7.1 track playing then have to settle for a DD 5.1 track to know I am hearing all the sound (but not the best quality) in my movie.

Any advice please? Thank you!!!

UPDATE: Ok upon further research/thinking, I see that my yamaha rx-v663 is capable of 7.1 ch audio signals. So again from what I understand, I just have to ensure that my receiver is setup to know that I only have a 5.1 speaker setup and it will then take the 6.1 or 7.1 LPCM signal from my PS3 and properly mix the extra 1 or 2 rear channels into my 5.1 setup??

[repete66211]

When running your speaker setup through the receiver you'll notice it knows how many speakers you have attached.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by dsimmelink

Good morning,

I have a PS3 as my blu-ray player going to a Yamaha RX-V663 receiver powering an Energy 5.1 surround speaker system.

To avoid always changing settings I go ahead and always let the PS3 do the audio processing and bitstream it to my receiver.

My concern is for movies that have 6.1 or 7.1 surround tracks. So if I understand correctly, the PS3 decodes the audio and sends it in its raw form to my Yammy. So from there is it safe to assume that my receiver will correctly downmix the 6.1 or 7.1 track into my 5.1 system? Or do I need to change any settings to get this to happen?

I would obviously much rather have a properly downmixed LPCM or TruHD (or whatever the uncompressed case may be) 6.1 or 7.1 track playing then have to settle for a DD 5.1 track to know I am hearing all the sound (but not the best quality) in my movie.

Any advice please? Thank you!!!

UPDATE: Ok upon further research/thinking, I see that my yamaha rx-v663 is capable of 7.1 ch audio signals. So again from what I understand, I just have to ensure that my receiver is setup to know that I only have a 5.1 speaker setup and it will then take the 6.1 or 7.1 LPCM signal from my PS3 and properly mix the extra 1 or 2 rear channels into my 5.1 setup??

I'm hoping it was a typo when you said you use your PS3 to 'bitstream' audio to the receiver. To get lossless audio you need to set the PS3 to PCM.

EDIT: Unless you have a new slim PS3 that is. The new ones can bitstream the raw data for your receiver to decode.

Anyway, as stated above when you run the auto setup of your receiver, it will 'know' how many speakers you have connected to it and will downconvert any 6.1 or 7.1 audio tracks appropriately to your 5.1 setup.

[dsimmelink]

Originally Posted by fireman325

I'm hoping it was a typo when you said you use your PS3 to 'bitstream' audio to the receiver. To get lossless audio you need to set the PS3 to PCM.

EDIT: Unless you have a new slim PS3 that is. The new ones can bitstream the raw data for your receiver to decode.

Anyway, as stated above when you run the auto setup of your receiver, it will 'know' how many speakers you have connected to it and will downconvert any 6.1 or 7.1 audio tracks appropriately to your 5.1 setup.

Oh shoot... you're right my bad! Sorry I haven't looked into this lately and my terminology is obviously off lol. Yeah I have a regular PS3 (not slim) and I have it set to PCM. I was just concerned since my PS3 IS doing the decoding work and not my receiver that it might pose a problem with the downmixing but the more I think about it it makes more sense now the way you explained it.

So back on track, yeah I have run the auto setup on my receiver and also tweaked it manually several times since. So it is fully aware that I have a 5.1 speaker setup and now I feel much better that it will downmix the extra channels appropriately.

Thanks!!