question for you audio people

[krispydude]

alright, i have a ps3 and an onkyo receiver however the hdmi is pass-through only on it. so my audio is connected by optical.

currently when i watch blu-ray on my ps3 and the disc has an 5.1 uncompressed or pcm audio i use that and switch my ps3 bd settings to linear pcm. i know only 2.1 channels can pass over the optical and then the my receiver must matrix the other 3 channles. for me this sounds better than regular DD 5.1. does this sound correct?

ok now my question are these other 2 audio formats being used now.

dolby trueHD - how does this compare to pcm? and would this be used under the bitstream setting in ps3? and does the whole thing pass through optical?

dts hd-ma - same as questions as trueHD

thanks for the help!

[haushausman]

I'm in the same boat right now. My Samsung receiver only supports 108oi passthrough so I'm currently using the Digital Optical.

Never had beefs with my sound, but apparently I've been only hearing a simulated 5.1 through 2.1.

You've tried using the passthough from your sound as well? Shouldn't that do the trick for you?

[DavePS3]

Dolby TrueHD ran fine through my Optical from my PS3 to my non-HD audio receiver so because the only other choice was uncompressed and I can't do that, it suggests that DTHD is backwards compatible. Whether or not DTHD sounds better than regular DD... I don't have a way to check. I don't know which bit rate I'm really getting. I do know that DTS-HD is backwards compatible and even that, is a higher bitrate than regular DTS or DTS-ES.

[devils3023]

Ok, here it goes... Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-MA are both lossless audio formats just like PCM, however these two are compressed to save space on the disc while pcm isn't. There are debates about whether or not you can hear the difference between the three but none the less all three formats are bit for bit identical to the original studio master, just pcm isn't compressed at all unlike the other two. As far as bitstreaming them from the ps3 you can't for a few reasons. First, your using an optical cable. You need to use hdmi to transfer these three codecs to an hdmi capable receiver. Second, the ps3 can't bitstream either of the two new dolby or dts codecs. It does however have a dolby truHD decoder built into it and can therefore send that audio to the receiver as linear pcm, meaning that it's already decoded and separated into the proper channels and the receiver just has to amplify it. So bottom line, you need an hdmi cable/receiver to take advantage of any of the lossless codecs and PCM is the preferred choice for purists simply because it's uncompressed and they associate compression with being "lossy" and inferior to raw uncompressed data of PCM. Hope this clears things up for you!!

[DavePS3]

There is no doubt that uncompressed lossless can only be run via HDMI but I know DTS-HD can be run via Optical or coax at a lower bitrate but higher bitrate than regular DTS. It says so on their website and I've e-mailed them. On Spiderman3 or Surf's Up (I forget which one) I believe, I picked DolbyTrueHD instead of uncompressed and the signal was fine as DD. If that's any better than regular DD, I wouldn't know without buying the SD Spidey3 and comparing scenes and I'm not doing that just for a test.

[ILLSQUAD2G]

Originally Posted by DavePS3

There is no doubt that uncompressed lossless can only be run via HDMI but I know DTS-HD can be run via Optical or coax at a lower bitrate but higher bitrate than regular DTS. It says so on their website and I've e-mailed them. On Spiderman3 or Surf's Up (I forget which one) I believe, I picked DolbyTrueHD instead of uncompressed and the signal was fine as DD. If that's any better than regular DD, I wouldn't know without buying the SD Spidey3 and comparing scenes and I'm not doing that just for a test.

What you are saying is correct about passing DTSHD AUDIO FORMATS through a digital coax/fiber optic. But the sound you are getting is the DTS CORE TRACK and not any type of HD audio. DTSHD FORMATS unlike DOLBY TRUE HD/PLUS can be passed as either an HD or DTS CORE signal. But the HD sound can only be passed through HDMI. But since PS3 can neither decode or Bitsream the format all you will get in either connection is the DTS CORE signal at 1.5 Mbp/s. The PS3 can decode the DOLBY TRUE HD and pass it via HDMI LINEAR PCM. As for PCM UNCOMPRESSED being passed through Digital coax/fiber optic will only pass as 2 channel and then the receiver will produce a matrix sound. To get the true effect of an UNCOMPRESSED PCM TRACK from the PS3 (or any player for that fact) it must be passed via HDMI ( I dont think it matter whether its LPCM or Bitsream but I could be wrong) I hope this helps you to better understand the HD AUDIO AND PCM FORMATS AND THE DTS-HD , DTS CORE audio formats and how they pass. If you have a specific question or dont understand entirely please send me a Private Message if you wish I will also check back on this post to see if I can help you.