[keesjan]

I unfortunately did not do my homework and am kicking myself for not buying a Blu Ray player that decodes DTS HD MA. There are some weird things happening that I'd like some help with. I'll try to be clear. My receiver is a Yamaha HTR6080, HDMI 1.2a I believe (similar to the RX861). It has two HDMI Inputs and one output. I am pretty sure it does not have any HDMI decoders. Please correct me if I am wrong. I bought a Samsung Blu Ray player BD-P1500. It decodes True HD but not DTS HD.


1) I set the Sammy to PCM and the Yammy shows MPCM. I'd like to get signal info on the audio bitrate but can't. Am I getting the HD sound when watching a TrueHD movie. (Sammy does decode TrueHD). I just want to be sure that it is the best possible sound.


2) Should I set the BD player to Bitstream for regular DVD's?


3) When I watch Blu Ray's with DTS HD MA sound I can still bitstream to the receiver and the receiver is decoding and outputting sound. I'm not sure if it is the DTS HD though. Is that normal? Shouldn't it be quiet? The signal info shows 5.1 or 6.1 (depending on disc), DTS and a 1536Kb bitrate. That seems low considering the discs are 3+ MB/s right for audio right? Does that mean the receiver is pretending it is regular DTS at the max bitrate?


4) When I put on Wall E and output bitstream the output shows 6.1 and the DTS lights come on in the AVR display. When I set the BD player to PCM the signal is 5.1 and the rear center does not light up on the AVR display. Are both my componenents capable of 6, 7 and 8 channels of MPCM?


I wish I learned more before seeing the sales and jumping on the band wagon. I really want to know that I am capable of listening to the best possible audio.


Thanks for looking and replying (if you do)

 

[MichaelJHuman]

First off, DTS (1.5 Mbs) is arguably of such high quality, DTS-HD Master Audio is not going to make a big difference. I base this on some listening tests that were done, and my own tests of audio compression rates. So I think you can live without DTS-HD Master Audio for the time being.


1. Yamaha won't show you the original signal info, all it knows is PCM. See your Sammy manual for displaying the signal info

2. I would not bother

3. It's simplest to let the Sammy decode the DTS core and send it as PCM. As mentioned above, the DTS core should sound very close to the original soundtrack. Unless you can set the Sammy to bitstream some audio and PCM the other.

4. That is normal


Let me elaborate on 4. If the Sammy sends bitstream, your receiver knows how to decode DD EX and DTS ES based on a flag. If the Sammy is decoding DTS ES and sending it as PCM, it's likely ignoring the matrixed rear channel. To play back that channel you would need to apply DTS ES processing to HDMI/MPCM.. Not all receiver will allow DTS ES processing to be applied to HDMI/MPCM. You will have to consult your manual. Dolby Digital EX likely works the same way. I also thing there's a discrete version of DTS ES, and I have NO idea how that works when you have a Blu-ray player decoding that. I am not even sure I own any DTS ES discrete soundtracks, so maybe it's a non issue.


I hope this helps

 

[keesjan]

Thanks for your clear reply. I agree that 1.5MB/s is quite impressive. I just wanted to see what 3 -4 MB/s sounds like.


Thanks again.