Question for Damon

[dblue]

Hey guys, long time no post.

This is a question for
Damon...I am probably going to be picking up a PS3 now that the price
is coming down and some games I am interested in are on the
horizon...plus I am interested in the blu-ray player, there are movies
on blu-ray that I'd like to watch that are not on HD-DVD.

So...my
question lies with the HDMI audio...how does the PS3 handle high
resolution audio from Blu-ray discs? Does it decode the audio and then
output it as multi-channel PCM over HDMI? I can't seem to find out how
this is done...and what receivers it will work with...HDMI specs are
all very confusing.

I am looking at the HK AVR 347....but I
don't know if it can handle multi channel PCM (or whatever the PS3
outputs). Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave Blue

[damonrpayne]

The preferred method is to allow the PS3 to decode and send out as multichannel PCM. There are several reasons for this, such as compatibility with hdmi 1.2 receivers and the fact that things like PiP and such are meant to be mixed in the player and hd-dvd and BluRay do not provide for multiple audio streams to be sent and mixed in a preprocessor.

Many people on the BluRay forums are looking at the new Onkyo HDMI 1.3 receiver, very cheap but I don't know about quality. I'm waiting on the Denon models like the AVR-3803 to come out. I'm currently using optical audio out only, so of course I'm missing out on the super audio but its hard to repalce my Stage One.

[dblue]

Sounds good...I'm looking at HK's receivers. They have HDMI 1.2 and I love their amps.

I'll take a look at the Denon's also.