How do HD audio codes work?

[mannisrai]

Hello,

I am looking to get a sound-bar, and i have been very interested in the JBL SB400 sound-bar as it seems decently priced, and has a 5 star rating from What HiFi magazine.

However, I have a question. I have many Blu-ray discs that have the DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD lossless audio codecs on there, which are made to be better than the normal Dolby Digital lossy codec. I have noticed that the JBL doesn't have DTS HD decoding, however my blu-ray player does. Bearing in mind that there are 3 HDMI inputs on the sound-bar.

So my question is, will i still be able to get decent high definition audio from my sound-bar even though it doesn't decode these HD formats, but my Sony Blu-ray player does and there are still 3 HDMI inputs on the sound-bar?

If not, is there any way getting round it, for example: changing the blu-ray player settings to PCM only?

Thanks.

 

[professorhat]

You won't be getting true cinema HD audio from the DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD tracks as your soundbar can only accept stereo - both the Dolby and DTS formats have a minimum of 6 channels, including a centre, two rears and a subwoofer track, whereas the JBL could only accept the PCM stereo track from the Blu-ray player. The JBL does have a surround mode, but this is a psuedo surround mode created by the JBL to make a stereo soundtrack sound like it's surrounding you.