PCM uncompressed or DTS-HDMA/DD-THD?

[leukoplast]

Ok, I have yet to find a good answer to this, so hopefully somebody here can help.

I have a PS3, so for me I cannot do bitstreaming of the lossless audio formats (DTS-HD/Dolby-TrueHD) due to the lack of support from the PS3's older 1.3 HDMI. But instead it decodes these codecs internally and sends it out via multichannel LPCM.

So my question is. Lets say I am watching a movie with Dolby TrueHD. Will it sound identical if it was decoded by the PS3 and sent via uncompressed PCM? Rather than being decoded by the receiver directly?

I hope the answer to this is 'yes' because I don't want to have to buy a separate Blu-Ray player just to get DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD bitstreamed to my receiver get the full audio quality.

Thanks for any help, and sorry if this is a repeat.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by leukoplast

Ok, I have yet to find a good answer to this, so hopefully somebody here can help.

I have a PS3, so for me I cannot do bitstreaming of the lossless audio formats (DTS-HD/Dolby-TrueHD) due to the lack of support from the PS3's older 1.3 HDMI. But instead it decodes these codecs internally and sends it out via multichannel LPCM.

So my question is. Lets say I am watching a movie with Dolby TrueHD. Will it sound identical if it was decoded by the PS3 and sent via uncompressed PCM? Rather than being decoded by the receiver directly?

I hope the answer to this is 'yes' because I don't want to have to buy a separate Blu-Ray player just to get DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD bitstreamed to my receiver get the full audio quality.

Thanks for any help, and sorry if this is a repeat.

The answer to that question is completely relative. This has been gone over many times already, I know, but TrueHD (and DTS-HD MA) are lossless audio codecs, so when they are decompressed it results in a bit-for-bit identical copy of the uncompressed PCM source. Whether it sounds better to have the PS3 decode the TrueHD and send it as PCM, or have a the TrueHD sent to a receiver an decoded there, would depend on which DACs did a better job at decoding the TrueHD. At this point in time, there aren't that many choices, so the differences in quality are not going to be that vast. AFAIK, the PS3 uses the CELL to decode TrueHD in software, and the cell is a very powerful processor. Most people seem to say it does an amazing job, but I don't have a PS3, so I can't say.

[leukoplast]

Yes, I have heard that as well. And it is a very powerful machine, I am almost certain the parts in it are far more capable of decoding these audio codec better than this receiver can.

But its good to hear that there really isnt much difference (as of yet)

So thank you, you have been helpful. And anybody else who wants to chip in, fell free