How common is 5.1 PCM vs. DTS on older receivers?

[Bluyoda]

Hi guys,

I have finished my BD-Audio in LPCM, but I'd like to know if 5.1 PCM is as common as 5.1 DTS in older receivers.

If I encode the audio tracks in 5.1 DTS-HD MA, people with older receivers can still play back the core 5.1 DTS tracks, whereas if their receivers don't support 5.1 PCM, they can only play back the stereo tracks, right?

It would be easier for me to just keep them in 5.1 PCM, but only if that format is as common in older receivers as DTS.

Just to make sure: If my disc is in DTS-HD MA, older receivers can still play the DTS core tracks exactly as they are, without any additional processing, correct?

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

[surfdude12]

Yes, I have old receiver (Onkyo 604) which can't encode DTS-HD, but can decode DTS 5.1. When I play a Blu-ray with DTS-HD, my receiver just spits out DTS 5.1.

My receiver can play 5.1 PCM, but only if I send it 5.1 PCM. Most Blu-rays now are DTS-HD 5.1 or Dolby-HD 5.1 so unless you have a Blu-ray player that can first convert the DTS-HD 5.1/Dolby-HD 5.1 to PCM 5.1 before it is sent to receiver, you need a receiver that can decode DTS-HD 5.1/Dolby-HD 5.1, if you want to hear DTS-HD 5.1/Dolby HD 5.1 (you can still hear DTS 5.1/Dolby 5.1)

[Canada]

Just because of the bit rates of PCM either 4.6 or 6.9 mbps an optical or coax cable can't pass that many mbps so they down convert the 5.1 PCM into stereo PCM.

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

Yes, I have old receiver (Onkyo 604) which can't encode DTS-HD, but can decode DTS 5.1. When I play a Blu-ray with DTS-HD, my receiver just spits out DTS 5.1.

My receiver can play 5.1 PCM, but only if I send it 5.1 PCM. Most Blu-rays now are DTS-HD 5.1 or Dolby-HD 5.1 so unless you have a Blu-ray player that can first convert the DTS-HD 5.1/Dolby-HD 5.1 to PCM 5.1 before it is sent to receiver, you need a receiver that can decode DTS-HD 5.1/Dolby-HD 5.1, if you want to hear DTS-HD 5.1/Dolby HD 5.1 (you can still hear DTS 5.1/Dolby 5.1)

So what you are saying is that most current BD players don't have an internal PCM encoder for multichannel, right?

Originally Posted by Canada

Just because of the bit rates of PCM either 4.6 or 6.9 mbps an optical or coax cable can't pass that many mbps so they down convert the 5.1 PCM into stereo PCM.

We were connected via HDMI.

[bobbydrugar]

PCM or LPCM is what gets compressed into DTS or DTS-HD or DD or Dolby True HD. All Stereo's and receivers can Playback PCM/LPCM. That is what they need to turn any of the encoded content back into in the first place.

I think what you really need to be concerned with is the connection type you are using. As was previously mentioned The bit rate that the PCM content is delivered in is important. Obviously HDMI has the bandwidth to pass 5.1 or 7.1 channels of fully uncompressed PCM/LPCM content to your AVR. However older receivers or stereos did not have HDMI (and even some that did could not actually use it for Audio data) In those cases you usually had 2 options. either you could use Coax/FIber cables connections in which case the 5.1 or 7.1 ch PCM/LPCM is down converted into a stereo Mix (better option would be if the reveiver could decode the DTS core track to get all 5.1 or 7.1 ch of compressed lossy data and the receiver would extract that into PCM/LPCM). The better option would be if your player had Analog 5.1 or 7.1 (Multich outputs which would be a block of RCA connectors for each ch) and your receiver had a Multich input (also a block of RCA connectors for each ch.) That way your Player could decode the newest formats it understood into basic PCM/LPCM and pass each channel of a dedicated link to the AVR or Stereo and no processing was needed on the AVR and you got the full highest quality audio that was possible without downmixing to stereo.

Hope that Helps.
T

[crackinhedz]

Optical can pass 125 mbps, so its not a matter of bandwidth. Rather, it was not designed for multichannel uncompressed as its an older technology, was not forseen back then. Combined with a lack of copy protection.