Anyone know much about home cinema audio formats?
I am thinking I havent got my amp and blu-ray set up correctly as when I play movies the amp/receiver scrolls" linear pcm 48" across the front. I want to be sure I am getting the full HD/Dolby digital sound but am not too sure?
Anyone a home cinema genius?
Funny thing is, I would ask over on whathifi.com forums but more likely to get an answer here 😀
Bluray player or PS3?
If it's a PS3 you have to enable the different outputs in the settings menu. Don't know about stand alone bluray players. Hope that helps.
bluray.
I think my player can also covert to 5.1 surround, so I am thinking that is switched on, not sure, any other thoughts?
depends on what your amp can take. models?
aahhh good old pulse code modulation (PCM) has been around for yonks. It's the uncompressed version of the AC3 or MP3 audio. 48 is the sample rate in kHz. Rather than having a separate audio track for each speaker, the sounds are cleverly squished into one 48kHz PCM file and then decoded at the amp. It's all very clever.
As far as I know Dolby Dig is usually 48kHz so yes, you are getting the best sound from the disc. The quality is down to your amp.
Amp is a sony STR-DA2400ES
bluray is sony BDPS350
Your amp can do the HD Formats used by BluRay, so it sounds as if you have a setting wrong.
How is your player connected to the amp?
The amp normally detects formats automatically, so try the player. They usually have an option to output the audio as mulitchannel PCM via the HDMI for use with older amps that don't do the HD formats. Try changing this and see what happens.
Player is connected to the amp by HDMI. So what do I need to set the blu-ray player to output?
Also what about Sky HD?
Looking at the manual for your player try setting the BD audio setting to DIRECT in the settings menu.
What's encoded on the disc also varies, check the packaging to see what it corresponds. Lots of newer music stuff should be 96/24.
I have also found that 'true HD' is often not the default soundtrack on the disc, you have to go into the disc menu to turn it on.
For sky connect via the HDMI and a second connection via the optical audio out into your AV amp.
As for the blue ray player as above set it to direct.
When you put a disk in go to the set up menu if it has one and make sure its set to DTS-HD Master Audio
Also check on the back of the disk packaging that will tell you what audio formats the disk has.
Off now to watch "band of brothers" on blue ray .......sweet joy
OK, I think I got my bluray set up properly, I think I previously had the player itself set to decode, and have now switched that off. A blue light now appears on the amp under multi channel decoding, so it is the amp doing the decoding.
Like this [img] 
[/img]
Cant get this blue light to come on from Sky HD though, not sure what I am doing wrong.
The amp still scrolls LInear PCM 48 in both cases though
You will only get at best Dolby Digital out of your Sky box.
There is talk of Master Audio in the future, but alas not now
Make sure your Sky+ HD box is set to output in HD. Go to Services > Settings > Picture and make sure "HD resolution output" isn't set to 576. Sky recommend "Automatic".
Something still not right.
The blue light on Sony Amps means that it is getting a mulichannel signal. But it should say Dolby digital/True HD or DTS-HD not PCM on the display.
Looking in the manual go to the audio menu on the amp, the DECODE PRIORITY option should be set to auto not PCM. See what happens then.
There's no such thing as HD audio really. 24 bit/96 kHz is the best you'll get, not exactly sure what formats DVD are able to support though.. tbh unless you're being really picky and in a properly treated space with ultra-transparent speakers, you won't hear much difference between 44.1kHz 16 bit WAV (CD) and higher formats.
AFAIK 5.1 is done with an AC3 file which is a compressed format (it needs to be to fit all 5 tracks onto a dvd + a stereo mix and any other audio tracks!). So I guess your receiver needs to be set to AC3/surround mode in order to properly decode the 5.1 file and send each signal to the correct speakers.
Right, Ive got my amp to display DTS-HD for Blue rays now (I think previously my blu-ray play was doing the decoding), but it still says Linear PCM 48 when watching skyHD, is that as good as it is going to get for sky?
Sorry to drag this up agin but it still aint working for SKY
I am trying to get dolby digital from my Sky HD box, and have it connected via optical cable and dolby digital enabled in the Sky Menu. Whenever I am watching a broadcast which is broadcast with either the DS (Digital surround) or DD (dolby digital) label in the tv guide I still dont think I am getting dolby digital through my amp.
My amp scrolls Linear PCM 48 across the front, and the two surround speaker boxes on the front of the display, just show empty boxes like [] , whereas when I watch a blu-ray these have [SL] or[SR] and the blue light comes on on the top of the amp.
So what am I doing wrong with the sky? Or is linear PCM 48 as good as it gets? Do you think I am only getting sound through my HDMI cable, if so I cant find the setting on the amp to set the satellite input to receive audio from the optical and video via HDMI.
Also what the difference between programs broadcast in DS or DD?
Please help, this has been driving me crazy for weeks!!
