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Sony ES owners; A.F.D. Auto soundfield question

#1
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7/12/09 at 5:30pm
  • Joined: February 2003
  • Post Count: 77
Hello Sony owners.  I'm having trouble and need some help.  In my GUI Menu, I've set my 5.1 system to a A.F.D. Auto setting.  However, if I playback my Blu-ray version of Pirates of the Carribbean 1 in uncompressed format, my Sony ES plays it back in only 2.1 (L,R, Sub) -- that is, only these lights are lit on my Sony's front panel display.  So, I thought uncompresses was the best and with A.F.D. Auto set, it would playback to all 5.1 speakers.  Am I correct in this thinking???  If I switch it off of A.F.D. Auto to Enhanced Surround mode, I get all 5.1 speakers lit up on my receiver front panel.  Am I doing something wrong her trying to coordinate my Blu-ray software and my ES hardware settings?  Please advise.  Thank you in advance!
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#2
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7/12/09 at 5:46pm
  • Joined: April 1999
  • Post Count: 1,573
It's playing back 2.1 because you are only getting stereo from whatever Blu-ray you are using.  This can be for a variety of reasons.

Please list:
model # of receiver
model # of Blu-ray player
connection between Blu-ray, receiver (HDMI / optical / coax)
which track you are trying to play (Pirates has uncompressed 5.1 PCM track + Dolby digital 5.1, the first definitely isn't going to work if you are connecting via other than HDMI; SPDIF is limited to 2 channels for PCM uncompressed audio)

It is most likely how you connected combined with which track you picked, other possibility is various audio settings in the Blu-ray player.

The "enhanced surround" is just creating 5.1 from the 2.0 source, but isn't what you really want to be doing.
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#3
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7/12/09 at 7:28pm
  • Joined: February 2003
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Thanks Stephen ... my receiver is the DA3400ES and my Blu-ray player is PS3.  HDMI used through-and-through.  I've selected the the uncompressed 5.1 PCM track from the Pirates software.  When I play the movie, I can see the receiver display scroll "Linear PCM [ 48]", but still only see my L, R, and SW speakers lit.  I tired another disc, Iron Man, and selected the TrueHD track, same thing, 2.1.  Thoughts/comments???
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#4
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7/12/09 at 7:46pm
  • Joined: February 2003
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OK ... figured it out (with your help above).  I needed to set some audio settings on the PS3 HW side to enable output those audio types.  So, I'm good to go!  However, it seems like the PS3 does not support output of TrueHD.  Am I correct?
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#5
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7/12/09 at 7:59pm
  • Joined: April 1999
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It's probably audio settings on the PS3.  Make sure your PS3 firmware is up to date, and make sure:
settings-video settings-BD/DVD audio format is set to "linear PCM", and
settings-audio settings-HDMI set to "automatic".

If the "automatic" doesn't work, then try it with all the DD/DTS/LPCM options checked.
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#6
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7/12/09 at 8:01pm
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Looks like you beat me to it and fixed your issue.  The PS3 decodes DD+, TrueHD, DTS-HD internally, and outputs it as LPCM, but won't bitstream the raw undecoded compressed streams.  So you won't see the "TrueHD" etc. lights on your receiver.  End result should be identical in theory.
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#7
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7/14/09 at 10:25am
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Hi Stephen ... if I recall, I do think I have a bitstream output from my PS3.  When passing audio signals to my ES3400, wouldn't that be the better option vs PCM -- to let the receiver do the work?

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#8
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7/14/09 at 12:57pm
  • Joined: April 1999
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The PS3 will only bitstream the older DD/DTS.  It won't bitstream TrueHD/DTS-HD.

No, it's not a better option than PCM, in theory it should be identical.  It is analagous to asking a computer to uncompress a zip file.  If you have 2 computers as you essentially do here, it makes no difference in the end whether the first computer unzips then sends to the second, or if it sends the zipped file over & the second one uncompresses.  This type of thing only matters when the link in between the machines is too slow to send the uncompressed data in a timely fashion, but HDMI has way more than enough speed.

Actually decoding in the player has the small advantage of being able to mix in secondary audio sounds (PIP commentaries, menu beeps), that you lose if you bitstream.
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#9
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7/14/09 at 2:05pm
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Thanks ... my thinking was that my ES receiver's internal circuitry may be "better" at processing the bitstream vs having my PS3 do it.  Since, afterall, it is one of Sony's "higher-end" components.  But, if at the end of the day, I'm not going to notice any difference -- well, then PCM it is!  :)

Thanks for the comments! 
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#10
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7/14/09 at 2:07pm
  • Joined: February 2003
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Another question -- what is the best way to update my PS3's firmware?  How do I know what version I'm on?  Where can I find the software?  How can I upload it to my PS3?
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#11
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7/14/09 at 2:19pm
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Oh, and one other question back to the PCM discussion ... what happens when I play an older, non-BR DVD with these settings?  Will decoding of DD 5.1 work?  Or, will I need to switch the PS3 settings back to something else to play these older DVDs correctly?
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#12
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7/14/09 at 4:20pm
  • Joined: April 1999
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You can look for the version in the menus.  There should be options to update if you have it hooked up to your LAN & going out to internet.

DVDs, older DD/DTS will also be decoded to LPCM.  Decoding of 5.1 will work perfectly fine.  What might be tricky is a few old *DD 2.0* only surround discs (BD or DVD).  I don't have a PS3 so I don't know for certain, but from what I have read, I think if you have PCM output set then it might decode these to 5.1 but with all but the 2 front channels silent, preventing you from applying prologic in the receiver to get surround.  For these it might be right to switch to bitstream so you can have prologic II mode on.  Firmware update may eventually address this.  Or maybe I'm just totally wrong about this, please someone with a PS3 correct me if this is bogus. Bill you can find a DD 2.0 DVD and test it.

But it may not be worth the hassle since these are often dialog-driven, non "spectacular action surround sound" normal dramas, comedies, foreign films, documentaries. Rather than action/comic book/"things blown up real good" stuff which are usually remastered to 5.1+ even for older films.
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