ok, I THINK I got it...

No. If you play a lossless track (dts-MA or TrueHD), you will get better quality than DTS or Dolby Digital.


No. "Lossless" refers to the kind of data compression that is used. PCM is uncompressed - a copy of the original soundtrack. So, it is technically not correct to refer to PCM as lossless, although people understand what you mean when you do.

PCM = decoded dts-MA = decoded TrueHD.

When decoded, lossless dts-MA and TrueHD tracks produce the same PCM that you would get if you simply put the original PCM on the disc. So, you will get high-resolution audio when playing any TrueHD or dts-MA track on your player when you set the output to PCM. (NOTE: depending on the player, you may need to turn Secondary Audio to Off in order to get lossless decoding.)

No. When the BDP is set to PCM it will decode the DD/DTS audio track to PCM. You don't need to find a BDP that already has the decoded PCM on it.


What you likely noticed was that the DD 5.1 track was a few db louder, but nothing more than that.


On some BDPs, there is a Secondary Audio setting which must be set to off in order to pass the bitstream HD audio track, although if your AVR cannot decode HD audio then you don't need to worry about that setting.

Most discs that have PCM tracks instead of lossless dts-MA or TrueHD will offer a DD 5.1 option for people with older non-HDMI equipment. Depending on the bitrate used with the DD 5.1, you may or may not hear a difference when switching between the two.


What player do you have? Secondary audio includes additional sound that is not part of the movie soundtracks - audio for PIP commentaries and menu sound effects, for example. Secondary audio must be mixed with the soundtrack by the player. Some players cannot do the mixing when decoding lossless and they use a lossy track instead. With those players, you need to turn off secondary audio in order to get lossless decoding.

No. With a number of players, you DO need to worry about that setting when decoding in the player for PCM output. For example, Panasonic players need to have secondary audio set to off in order to decode lossless. Some of the Sony players will decode TrueHD when set to Mix, but fallback to the DTS core instead of decoding dts-MA.

A lot older, which means my earlier posts were incorrect. You DO need to play discs with PCM tracks to get high-res audio with a Sharp BD-HP20U. That player does not decode dts-MA and I think it required a firmware update to do TrueHD. But, since dts-MA is used on the vast majority of Blu-rays, you're out of luck for lossless audio most of the time. Of course, the high bitrate lossy DTS core on BD sounds great, too, so the lack of lossless audio is not that big a deal.