PS3/4 & BD player audio out?

[Glacialpath]

Hey guys as I've seen quite a few questions regarding which setting to use I thought I would start a thread explaining my understanding and hope it helps any one wanting to know.

All players with a digital audio output should give you the option to either let the player do the audio decoding (set player to PCM) or sending the audio to an AV Receiver for it to do the decoding (Bitstream)

This applies to Games consols and BD/DVD players.

The thing to remember is PCM is basically the same as DD, DTS, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-MA and any other codec streaming, disc or broadcast bassed content uses.

PCM can be 1.0, 2.0, 5.1, 7.1 or any other combination just the same as DD, DTS etc. etc A player/consol does not need to be set to PCM for you to hear the PCM audio. It does however have to be capable of decoding a PCM codec otherwise you will just get the core audio from the audio stream which is most likely DD.

For Example: DTS HD-Master has a core audio of DTS, Dolby TrueHD has a core audio of Dolby Digital. This is so the audio can be downscaled if the attached device doesn't have the correct decoder for HD-MA or TrueHD. It is the same for regular DTS, it's core audio will use the Dolby Digital decoder in an AVR if the AVR can't do DTS Just as the old DVD players that didn't have a DTS decoder in them and it was connected directly to a TV but then if you selected a DTS stream it would just be mute.

As pointed out on the PS3/4 Forum most of the games have PCM audio. If you have the consol set to Bitstream you should see PCM on your AVR. I think you see Dolby Digital on the consol display but if I remember correctly you see DTS on the consol display if you are listening to a DTS HD-MA audio stream but you will have DTS HD Master on your AVR and that is what you will be hearing.

So the basic answer to the title of the thread is. If you have an AVR that accepts HDMI and you know it can take all the HD audio codecs which includes Linear PCM (PCM) then set the source to Bitstream and let the amp do all the audio work then the player can consentrate on the Video without having to worry too much about audio. The sync should be perfect all the time. If not then it could be the an authoring error or encode error on the disc or a setting in the AVR.

If you are not interested in Surround sound and don't have an AVR then set the source to PCM.

I don't fully understand with regards Soundbar's but if the accept the HD audio codecs then set the source to bitstream. If not then PCM.

I hope that is clear. *biggrin*

 

[bigboss]

I don't think what you're inferring is true. LPCM does not "downscale" audio to DTS etc.

Check this.

 

[bigboss]

"What the PS3 can do is decode (unzip) the Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD MA lossless audio and send it to your receiver as a multichannel linear PCM (LPCM) stream, which just about any modern receiver can decode. The LPCM audio is identical to the Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD MA original format, so no quality is lost."

 

[Glacialpath]

I don't think what you're inferring is true. LPCM does not "downscale" audio to DTS etc.

Check this.

I didn't say that PCM would be down scaled to DTS. I said DOlby Digital. I know PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master are basically the same. They are all uncompressed audio codecs.

The DTS and Dolby Digital HD codecs contain a core audio which is regular DTS and DD. It is one of the things we had to test at my old job.

But when the is no PCM decoder I'm pretty sure the DD one is used as the default decoder for any audio that is being recieved. Most DVD and BD audios are AC3 but for disc format and broadcast they are ancoded as DD or DTS

Also regarding that link. It is 5 years old and I think you will find firmware upgrades have allowed to the PS3 to send the HD audio via bitstream. We were testing with them set to PCM until this firmware upgrade came that allowed the AVR to get the whole package. Don't forget the PS3 came out before Dolby Digital and DTS came out with the HD audio codecs so there was no way the PS3 could decode them to start with let alone send them over HDMI. When we started working with BDs and HD-DVD PCM was the only available uncompressed hence all the old BDs having PCM 5.1

 

[bigboss]

Since software version 2.30, PS3 supports DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio. Sony advises selecting Linear PCM as the audio output for blu ray discs that can output in Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio, and specifies that the AV receiver must support the codecs.

 

[Glacialpath]

Since software version 2.30, PS3 supports DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio. Sony advises selecting Linear PCM as the audio output for blu ray discs that can output in Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio, and specifies that the AV receiver must support the codecs.

But that is a contrudiction. The AVR would only be recieving PCM so it doesn't need to support DTS HD or TrueHD.

Not sure where you got the info from but this old link doesn't say anything about having to set the PS3 to Linear PCM, it just says that firmware allowed the PS3 to support the HD audio codecs.

https://support.us.playstation.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/788/~/change-ps3-audio-output-settings

As I explained if a DVD player didn't support DTS your couldn't use that stream even if your Reciver supported it.

That 2.30 firmware was to allow the PS3 to send the HD codecs for the receivers to decode. They say the PS4 is the first console to have a DTS HD-MA 7.1 decoder onboard meaning the PS3 can't have so it had to send it to the recivers to do.

Either that or the industry and Playstation themselves are talking rubbish.