Official Blu-Ray Player Audio Setup Thread - All Audio Questions Go Here - Page 6

Quite the contrary, I never used my PS3 to test, only my BD55 if you read my other posts.

Like this one? The one I was responding to?

No like this one, PCM/Bitstream all from the BD55.

"Go into my BD55 audio manual and keep toggling between PCM/bitstream without looking many times, I don't know what method it ends up being."

I Just bought a new HP laptop with a blu ray player. it has a HDMi out but the only problem is that my receiver does not have HDMI. So I know I could go directly to the Pioneer 111 with the HDMI for the pix but is there anything I can do to get 6.1 audio from the receiver. I really would love a little help as I am getting frustrated. Thanks.


Product Name dv7-1170us
Product Number FS151UA#ABA
Microprocessor 2 GHz Intel Centrino Processor Technology featuring Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5800
Microprocessor Cache 2 MB L2 Cache
Memory 4096 MB
Memory Max 8192MB
Video Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
Video Memory Up to 2303 MB (512MB dedicated)
Hard Drive 320 GB (5400 rpm)
Multimedia Drive Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD±R/RW Double Layer
Display 17.0 diagonal WXGA+ High-Definition Brightview Infinity Display (1440 x 900)
Fax/Modem High speed 56K modem
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Wireless Connectivity Intel WiFi Link 5100AGN

Bluetooth
Sound Altec Lansing speakers
Keyboard 101-key compatible
Pointing Device Touch Pad with dedicated vertical and horizontal Scroll Up/Down pad
PC Card Slots One ExpressCard/54 slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)

External Ports 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
4 Universal Serial Bus USB 2.0
4th port shared with eSATA
1 VGA (15-pin)
1 HDMI
1 RJ-11 (modem)
eSATA + USB 2.0
1 RJ -45 (LAN)
2 headphone-out
1 microphone-in
1 notebook expansion port 3
1 IEEE 1394 Firewire (4-pin)
1 Consumer IR

Dimensions 15.59 (L) x 11.22" (D) x 1.31 (min H)/1.66(max H)
Weight 7.64 lbs
Security Kensington MicroSaver lock slot
Power-on password
Accepts 3rd party security lock devices

Power 90 W AC Adapter
8-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)

I am on the fence between a samsung 2500 vs a sony 550, the samsung has the edge on upscaling, but on the audio side if i am bring either optical/coax over on the sony vs optical only on the samsung, my AVR is a non 7.1 ,Lex MC1, so I need to use either optical or coax for audio in, Correct,???
Any differences between the two????
video going to proj. via HDMI
Thanks

From an audio perspective there shouldn't be a difference.

It would probably be best to post your question in the Home Theater Computers Forum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

It would be helpful to add the model number and make of the Blu-ray player in your laptop.

The problem is that audio over HDMI is copy protected with HDCP. Because of this you don't see converters or breakout boxes to take the audio out of the HDMI signal and pipe it to your AVR.

One option you might have is to get a separate outboard sound card for the laptop that supports toslink or coax digital out. If you could then get this device working during BD playback then you would at least be able to get DD 5.1 or DTS to your AVR over toslink or coax.

On the other hand with the prices of BD players coming down it might not be long before it simply makes more sense to buy a separate standalone BD player for home theater use.

I have a question that I didn't see an answer to in the previous pages of this thread...

I currently use a Marantz SR-780 receiver via COAX from my Sony DVD player to handle DD 5.1 audio from DVDs... This receiver only handles DD (no DTS at all)...
So, I'm looking a getting a Samsung BD-1500 ($150 at Fred Meyer), but am now a little concerned about the no-DTS situation...

I know that I can't get the lossless audio via COAX or OPT and I'm fine with that for now... I also know that if I select a DD TrueHD track from the Blu-ray disc, the player will extract the core DD 5.1 compressed track and output that via COAX to my receiver and once again, I'm fine with that...

Are there Blu-ray discs that ONLY contain DTS tracks (no DD 5.1 tracks at all) or is DD 5.1 kind of like a basic requirement like I believe that it was with DVD discs? If such a disc exists are there players that can determine that I've disabled the DTS over COAX in the player and re-encode it in DD 5.1 (wishful thinking on my part perhaps) or does it just mean that I'm stuck with maybe a 2 channel stereo audio track for those particular discs unless I decide to upgrade my receiver..

Thanks in advance for information that you can provide me...

Unfortunately, there are a growing number of discs that only have dts-MA tracks. In those cases, the player will output the DTS core track over optical, which does you no good. DD 5.1 is not a requirement and, as far as I know, no BD players transcode DTS to DD. Sorry.

Im in a similar boat, my Lexicon MC-1 only decodes DD, I can bring it in via optical or digital coax, I am looking at the Samsung 2500 which only has optical, am I wasting my time with blue ray with my current Av preamp or should I be looking at a different player???
Thanks,

The lack of analog inputs and a DTS decoder means you'll be limited to stereo on a large number of discs. This will be true of any player you buy, not just the Samsung. I think you need a new receiver.

so I cant even get 5.1 out of any blue ray to my lex????,
I am sorry , it does do DTS, any hope???

I just can't seem to get this to work right. First, a bit of history. I bought this blu-ray player several months ago and had it hooked to a non-HD Onkyo receiver. I ran my HDMI cable from the blu-ray straight to my HDTV, then ran a fiber cable from the blu-ray to the receiver. I was getting Dolby Digital, DTS, the works.

So, Circuit City is going out of business so I invest in a new HD receiver, the 806. I connect my 360, my RCA satellite, everything to my new receiver using HDMI cables. The problem? My blu-ray doesn't seem to be sending DTS to the receiver, or the receiver isn't listening for them; all I get is PCM, with the display reading MultiCh. Dolby Digital comes through just fine after I configured the digital audio sources on the receiver, but the blu-ray is my only device capable of DTS and I'm not getting it.

Any ideas as to why this configuration doesn't seem to be working for me??

If it decodes DD and DTS you're good to go. You can't get the lossless versions of the audio tracks, but the lossy versions contained on BD's can be decoded by standard DD and DTS decoders and sound even better than the equivalent tracks on standard DVDs because they are encoded with higher bitrates.

There is a tiny, tiny number of of BDs whose only multichannel audio is contained in an uncompressed LPCM track, which would require an HDMI or a multichannel analog connection; their DD tracks are only 2.0. This is not a growing trend, and seems to be restricted to a handful of concert discs.

It sounds like your player is configured to internally decode and output LPCM via HDMI. Because the audio is already decoded, the receiver is not required to do any further decoding and therefore does not indicate "DTS' or whatever. The player, on the other hand, may indicate (perhaps through an on-screen display if not on the front panel) that is is decoding.

In-player decoding is preferable because Blu-ray supports secondary audio (for features like PIP commentaries) which only work with in-player decoding. Letting the player decode and send multichannel LPCM will provide the maximum audio benefits of Blu-ray. The receiver will indicate Multichannel LPCM because that's what it's getting from the player.

There should be a setting in the player that will let you bitstream audio to the receiver, so it can be decoded there. This will give you your little indicator lights on the receiver, but you will lose your secondary audio capability and gain nothing in terms of audio quality.

I have a Rotel rsp 1570 on order and I currently own a ps3. I have questions:

1) If I set my ps3 to bitstream, will my new expensive pre/pro be doing the decoding? I have heard that the ps3 was unable to send raw bitstream audio. If so, why even have a bitstream option?

2) What should my setting for bd/dvd upcaler on the ps3 be? Should I turn it off and use the Rotel pre/pro upconverter?

3) What should my bd/dvd cinema conversion be set at? Automatic or Video. This is one that I really have no clue about.

Thanks

Warren

The PS3 bitstreams legacy DD and DTS, but not the new codecs.

Hi,

Trying to connect my bluray my receiver to utilize TrueHD and DTS HD. From my understanding, TrueHD and DTS HD are not signals that can be carried through your regular digital optical audio cable. I have to use HDMI, correct?

So it looks something like this.

Bluray------>(hdmi input)Onkyo 706(hdmi output)------->1080p tv

No other connections are necessary and I need only a total of 2 HDMI cables for both audio (7.1) and video (1080p)???

Thanks

Correct. Make sure you have HDMI 1.3a cabling. No need to buy expensive Monster cabling. Go to http://www.monoprice.com/home/index.asp and get your HDMI cables. Very good cabling for much less. Set your BDP to Bitstream (Audiophile) to the receiver. Also be sure to have the current FW for the BDP you're using installed.

thanks. Yes, have HDMI 1.3 wall plates and CL2 in wall wiring all ready to go.
One thing I forgot to ask: The receiver must support 1080p switching. Otherwise it may output to 1080i? I have not purchased the receiver yet. I didn't know why receivers came with HDMI inputs/ouputs, but now I see

That's kinda crappy. What a waste of good hi end expensive decoding. Do you know of a good blu-ray machine out there that will bitstream raw audio of the new sound formats? Probably the wrong forum for that, huh?

What's the waste? The decoder in your processor?


Most players bitstream these days.

Well, I will most likely get better sound running bitstream sound through my twenty five hundred dollar pre/pro over my four hundred dollar ps3. Am I right?

Nope. Your $2,500 prepro does the processing either way. Decoding is nothing more than unzipping a compressed file. If the PS3 does the decoding, all it does is unzip the file and send the resulting PCM to your prepro for processing. If you bitstream, the prepro unzips the file and processes it. It's the same PCM, processed by your prepro either way.

Be aware that if you do this you will not be able to use Blu-ray's secondary audio features (such as the wonderful PIP commentary on the "Band of Brothers" BD set, among others). If your player can internally decode the HD codecs, it's better to let it do so and send its audio output as multichannel LPCM via HDMI to the receiver. The connections and the audio quality remain unchanged. The receiver will indicate "Multichannel" instead of "DTS-MA" or whatever.

Be sure to check in the appropriate receiver thread in the Audio area. Generally modern receivers will pass 1080p inputs untouched to the output, so the question is whether they will upscale other input signals, and if so, how well. The importance of this feature somewhat depends on your other equipment, particularly your display, and how well it all upscales. You may or may not need to care about your receiver's upscaling ability.

In some systems, buying too much receiver simply introduces a lot of redundancy: Audio decoders that duplicate what's already in the Blu-ray player; upscaling that can be done better by the player or the cable box or the TV itself.

There are lots of expensive machines (and several reasonably-priced ones too) that will bitstream the new codecs via HDMI. See the chart:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1050507

If your goal is to spend a lot of money unnecessarily, the audio industry is right there ready to serve!

What you will get for your money is, of course, (1) the joy of seeing the DTS-MA or Dolby TrueHD indicator lights on your Rotel, (2) identical audio quality, and (3) the loss of Blu-ray's secondary audio features, which require in-player decoding.

Your final point drives the answer: as soon as you mention sending the video to a projector, that says get the Samsung. The HQV processing (especially for DVDs) will make a huge difference on a large screen. If you don't have analogs audio in on your AVR, then you're going to get the same results from the optical output of ANY player.

I have an HP dv5 that I've used in a similar config and the short answer is: all you can do is take the (crummy) stereo audio out of the headphone jack if your receiver can't handle HDMI. I ran HDMI out from my laptop to the projector just to checkout the video until I got my Blu-Ray player (Samsung 2550) last weekend.

If you don't upgrade your receiver, you'll need to use the 7.1 analog audio out to get multi-channel audio (assuming your amp has 5.1/7.1 analog ins). That's what I do.