I used to have my cable box go directly to my Onkyo sr600 with fiber optic cable. This gave me Dolby Digital 5.1.

I decided to order an HDMI cable in lieu of a PS3 purchase in the coming months. I figured I would try to get rid of the lip sync by using the HDMI from the cable box to my Sammy HL-R5067w then go from sammy to Onkyo. This is now giving me PCM audio with DTS. I am so confused as to why this is happening now. I am so excited because the lip sync is gone and I now have much better sound.

Is this because of the decoder in the Sammy can send on the PCM? Has anyone ever heard of this before? I really wish I would have known about this because I could have done this TWO YEARS AGO.

Can someone please explain this to me so maybe I can change my friends/family setups for the better. Thank You in advance. Sorry if this was discussed before but I could find anything related with search.

I am sorry, but this makes no sense to me.

How are connected from the TV to the AVR - with optical? With most sets, the audio from an HDMI input is downmixed to stereo with that kind of a connection. Even if Samsung is one of the few sets that will pass multichannel audio from a source other than its own internal off-air tuner, how would it become DTS? No one broadcasts in DTS, only Dolby Digital. Also, "PCM with DTS" is not really possible. PCM is basic digital audio. DTS is a method of compressing PCM for storage and transmission. A decoder then converts it back into PCM.

By the way, you can get excellent HDMI cables from monoprice for about $10. There's no need to choose between an HDMI cable and a PS3.