Blu ray audio problems

[admin_exported]

Before I begin I should admit that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

I bought a Panasonic DMP-BDT310 to play music concert Blu ray and DVD discs - I don't watch films much at all so don't need surround sound. I have it connected to the TV via HDMI cable, and for audio it outputs through a QED Performance optical lead to a DacMagic, to an Arcam A18 amp, to ProAc Studio 125 speakers.

The problem I had was that it would output sound through the TV on all discs, but only some discs would output ok through the Hi Fi. The video output is ok either way. For instance; a 'Black Country Communion' Blu ray would play fine through the Hi Fi but neither a 'Yes' and 'Procul Harem' Blu Ray would?

I've ploughed through the BDT310's instructions and changed some audio settings from 'bitstream' to 'PCM'. (whatever that means) that seems to have cured the audio so that all the discs now output sound through the Hi Fi.

My questions are though; Have I done the correct thing? What should the settings be for my requirements?

The discs themselves give me an audio choice of;

Dolby digital stereo, Dolby digital 5.1, DTS HD, DTS-HD master audio 5.1.

Why is it asking me? I don't know! Why doesn't it effing well know itself? i'll stop now as I'm getting a bit emotional...

 

[professorhat]

Most Blu-rays and DVDs come with surround sound tracks (as you would expect), so you needed to set your player to downconvert these surround tracks to stereo so your DAC / hi-fi would understand it - it looks like this is what you've done.

If you've got a choice on the disc, then choose the Stereo version as then the disc will be outputting the soundtrack as the sound engineer designed it to sound via stereo speakers, rather than your player downconverting the surround track so it works through your stereo speakers.