Just bought a SONY HTSS370 HT system in a box..

Nah DCS is just Sony's proprietary Cinema soundfields, you don't really need to use those unless you really like one (or more) of them. If you stick with AFD standard or whatever, you will get pure DD/DTS decoding or multi-LPCM over HDMI as it is transmitted.

The system you bought will decode dolby digital and dts, you need to make sure your sources are set up to output these formats. Also, if you are watching something that is not broadcast in DD, such as certain cable or satellite channels or shows, then you wont have the option to select DD.

I just literally bought this unit as well. It comes next week. Are you using the S-Air at all?

How are you liking the unit so far? I didn't need the blu-ray player either (have a PS3) so I thought this would be an inexpensive first home theater system to invest in.. Love to hear your thoughts!

I have the HT-SS370 and love it with my PS3 and Bravia TV.

I don't understand what you mean by the HDMI connections being intrusive. The receiver knows when you are using the "TV" or the PS3 and should switch automatically. You are definitely missing out by using optical for the PS3. The PS3 should not be connected to the receiver via optical. HDMI is the way to go. The PS3 is able to decode DTS-MA and Dolby TruHD and sent it LPCM to the receiver only via HDMI, not optical. You have to make sure that DTS-MA and Dolby TruHD are selected in the audio options on the PS3 and that you set up the PS3 to send the BD signal on Linear PCM. The Receiver unit will show LPCM in the display even though the PS3 is handling all the decoding. Optical can't handle the bandwidth. If you want to check what the PS3 is decoding and sending LPCM to the unit, you can check by pressing "triangle" on the PS3 controller and then "i" for info. The information is shown in the upper right corner. As I said, the receiver will only show that is receiving LPCM.

However, an optical cable is optimal from the TV to the receiver unit, since DD 5.1 and 2.1 can be sent through optical cable, and most stations broadcast in those formats. The best Sound Field setting for playing BD movies and games from the PS3 is AFD-STD since this reproduces sounds as they were meant to be reproduced. When playing broadcast TV, I select PL-II movies and the unit detects if a station is broadcasting DD 5.1 or 2.0. If it is 2.0 the PL-II kicks in to give surround, if it is 5.1 only DD 5.1 is reproduced. If you have a cable box with coax, then coax can be used from the box instead of the optical from the TV or cable box.

I don't like the Movie-DCS and, but this is a matter of taste. I like to hear the sounds as they were meant by the source material, as I mentioned above. Movie-DCS does work with 5.1 DD and 2.0 or ay signal, and it applies PL-I if needed. Like I said, I mostly don't use for BD/DVD playing and select AFD-STD. However, I do use Movie-DCS for Netflix streaming since Netflix is not streaming DD 5.1 still and I find that it works well for these movies.

Also, the unit detects signal automatically, you can't select if you want DD, or DTS, the unit does from the signal and PL-I or PL-II are applied automatically, if needed and you have it selected as a sound field. Also, when you are using your external speaker or 5.1 you should not have the TV speakers working... I am probably misunderstanding something from your comment, but it seems like you are trying to run the TV speakers while the 5.1 system is on. The TV speakers should be OFF while the 5.1 is on.

I have this system and, like I said before, I am loving it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Yes, you're correct, you'll need to hookup your PS3 through HDMI, so you'll pass HD MA and TrueHD. and the rest via optical and not lose anything....and still keep your TV's independant input settings.

-Best,
John

You say:

But what you have now is:

Don't you have to switch BOTH TV and Receiver with your current setup anyway - with video feeds going to TV and audio feeds going to the receiver?

Does the "Bravia Sync" stuff solve the single input problem (when using a Sony TV, of course)? I'm thinking that when the receiver switches to the input for my Xbox 360, for example, the SS370 and the TV should "talk" and realize that I need game mode, is that correct?

No, you don't need 7.1 to enjoy TrueHD. As a matter of fact, most TrueHD and DTS-MA material out there right now is 5.1 and not 7.1. Yes, you are missing out if you are not listening to the lossless quality given to you by these formats. After all, this is the way to experience HD and BDs at their fullest.

Once again, HDMI from the PS3 or any BD player for both video and audio is the way to go to get the best sound and video quality. The SONY SS370 sounds amazing when playing lossless LPCM sent from decoded TruHD and DTS-MA.

You are correct.

The PS3 setting should have nothing to do with the cable and TV settings. The problems with the voices has to be related to that side and nothing with the PS3. Anyway, why do you want to use the TV speakers at all? ;-)

LPCM from the PS3 through HDMI should give you 5.1 DTS-MA or TrueHD when playing movies if you have those decoders selected in the audio options and you make sure that the movies are set-up to those formats. Sometimes the movies default to 2.1 so you have to select TruHD or DTS-MA through the Audio menu on the movies. Other that that, there should not be any reason to get less than that from the system.

Alright... I guess that is what works for you. Enjoy.

I just bought a HTSS370 but I have problem to get 5.1 from my PC. I am using S3 Chrome 530 graphic card and connecting by HDMI to my HTSS370 but i can only get 2.1 sound from any 5.1 DVD or Blu-ray video file. I tried many programs such as power DVD 10 and kmplayer (tired AC3 filter and any other audio codec but no luck). Anyone please help me with that. I really want to get the 5.1 from my PC since i have many video files in my hard drive. Thanks a lot.

Everything you mention is correct operation. Your problem is that you insist on using the TV speakers. I'm pretty sure the SS370 has a volume knob, which would prevent things from "blaring" all the time as you put it. You can even turn the sub level down to off if you don't want to use the sub at times. If you stuck with using the system you wouldn't have a problem. It seems, however that there are a lot of people that for some strange reason, want to use TV speakers


This, to me, senses no make at all. You have to downgrade your audio to lossy formats to use speakers (in the TV) which are also going to be poor. So it's a "double whammy" there--poorer quality source format and then poorer quality speakers to play it through.


Again this is correct operation, the only way around it is to go into the PS3's audio settings and set everything everytime you switch from the receiver to the TV (and vice versa). What may work (I'm not sure as I've never tried doing these shens) is leaving the PS3 to auto-detect the audio formats it can send. However it also may not work because IIRC the auto-detect isn't itself automatic, it's a manual option you go to when setting up your audio. It's worth a try though but no guarantees.


Actually it's pretty easy to hear the difference IMO. First time I tried going back and forth was with I Am Legend, the opening scene where he's driving the Mustang. If you have this movie, try it out and switch from the DD to the TrueHD track (outputting to the SS370 via LPCM) and you should easily hear the difference as well. I mean it's night and day between the two IMO.

So Dolby Digital 384-640 will be readily distinguishable IMO. DTS 768 (754 payload) might be a little harder to distinguish but I think you would still be able to. DTS 1536 (1509 payload) aka "DTS core" on a DTS-HD track might be where it gets tougher because on a 5.1 track that's a pretty good per channel bitrate. But for DD, it is pretty hard to not hear the difference.


The "fix" is to stop using the TV speakers or try leaving the PS3 on auto (which probably won't work but worth a try). Otherwise you are stuck with changing it everytime in the PS3 setup menu. Or you could buy another PS3 and connect it to another input on the TV and set it up solely for use with TV speakers, lol.

Thanks for your thoughts on the HTS-S370 I get my unit tomorrow so I am excited to get them set up. How do you like the look of the speakers? Are they bulky? Does the sub sound pretty good? Your using a wired setup for your rear speakers?

Isn't the question who would want to use the TV speakers?


Seems like you are in luck TV-speakers-man you can do this as of firmware 3.0 (you couldn't before I guess they changed this a while ago though). There are slight restrictions on the HDMI if you do this however (max. multi LPCM output becomes 5.1 48kHz). Lucky again--most BDs are within that limitation.

http://manuals.playstation.net/docum...udiomulti.html