onkyo 605 & ps3 audio

lazio1974

im not an experienced audiophile so please be kind and try to help me figure out this connections. i have a ps3 connected hdmi to my onkyo 605 and out to sony bravia via hdmi. in the ps3 bd/dvd audio output format hdmi i have checked bitstream and this way i get all the correct audio settings on my onkyo lcd display dts if i select it from the dvd menu dd and plenty of soundfields to play with and so on. now if i select linear pcm in my ps3 bd/dvd audio set up like i read somewhere it should be all i get is pcm multichannel on my onkyo screen and no sound fields no dts that i can see no dd, sorry if this sounds confusing but it is only my 2nd or 3rd time using this thread.ps im only running a 5.1 sistem

awol

The speakers are irrelevant actually. But unfortunately, the PS3 will not bitstream anything other than DD or DTS-core. If you select the Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA HD track, the PS3 will do the decoding and will send the soundtrack as PCM to your 605. The DD or DTS lights will NOT light up as you showed.

You should still get multi-channel audio with this setup through your 5.1 speakers though.

lazio1974

thanks for your answer, should i change the setting on my ps3 to linear pcm and why is it that when i do im locked in multichannel and i dont see no dd or dts? whit bitstream at list i get to use more then one soundfield and the onkyo says dd and it sounds like it

awol

IIRC, you need to have your PS3 set for LPCM over the HDMI settings. Remember that the PS3 is doing the decoding. Your AVR will NOT show anything other than "Multichannel". This is because your AVR is only processing the signal into sound. It's not doing any decoding. Note that processing is not the same as decoding.

When you send plain dolby digital and plain DTS, you can send those as bitstream from the PS3 over HDMI or optical. All this means is that the PS3 is NOT decoding the soundtrack, it sends all of the data directly from the disc to the AVR which then decodes it. The PS3 is not capable of sending a bitstream of Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio, even though your AVR is capable of decoding it. As such, you have to let the PS3 do the decoding and send it as LPCM. During a movie, you can press the "select" button on the PS controller, and it will show up top (I think, maybe at the bottom) what the soundtrack is.

Set up this way, you should have multichannel sound coming from your speakers even though your AVR does not light up for DD or DTS.