PS3 Blu Ray Audio Playback Problem

 I have a PS3 connected to a Yamaha RX-V1700 via HDMI. The PS3 is new and I use it almost exclusively as a DVD / Blu-Ray player at this stage. I have encountered a problem with some of the audio tracks on animated DVD's played on this player. The most recent one was Ratatloile, where you could hear the thoughts of the characters, but not the spoken voices. I tried to play with audio setup features and language options, but to no avail. If I load the disc into a HD DVD recorder also connected to the Yamaha, the soundtrack plays correctly (not connected via HDMI). Could HDMI be the culprit here or am I missing something...?

Bleeding obvious question here: what is your setup, and what are your settings?

I'm rather confused.  How can you hear someone's thoughts if you aren't hearing their voice, without being psychic ?  Or do you mean you are hearing director commentary but not the on-screen characters or vice versa?  Exactly who are you hearing & not hearing and is this the entire film or just a particular section?

Are you watching Ratatouille DVD or Blu-ray? Which track are you trying to listen to?
Is it the main movie you are playing or an extras clip?

Is video settings/BD audio HDMI set to PCM or bitstream?
Sound settings/audio set to HDMI/auto?

I'm going to take a punt here, and assume that the error is something to do with the centre channel, and that the only reason you've noticed it on animated films might be by sheer chance that those are the only ones you're listening to in 5.1.

And that is a random guess.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses.

Stephen_J_H: "what is your setup, and what are your settings?"  - I'm not hugely technical - what are you asking for specifically?

Stephen Tu: We were watching the main movie on DVD (not Blu-ray disc). Whenever a charachter "thinks to himself" the audio can be heard. When they physically speak it cannot. Are the settings you're asking about on the PS3 or the AMP (or both)?

Jonathon M, thanks, I'll check that the speaker is working and revert if it isn't.

HD Wonderland: Can I ask what disc you are referring to? Let us know what movie you're watching, which version you have (region 1, USA, etc) and it could give us something more helpful to work with.

Also, with your setup, can you tell us the make/model of your TV and amplifier?

The settings I'm asking about are on the PS3.  Please list what you have under those two sections.  Switch the first one between PCM/bitstream see if same problem.

The "can hear thoughts but not voices" is just bizarre, unless it is something like Jonathon suggesting, center channel dropout, and the thoughts were mixed so some of it is coming out of mains/surrounds.  The equipment of course has no way to know whether a character is thinking or talking.  So are you hearing nothing from the center speaker for entire movie?

What are the symptoms on other 5.1 DVDs?  There's no reason for it to affect only animated DVDs, it has to do something on all of them.

This may or may not help.  Now that I've moved my PS3 out of my HT into another location in my house (my new Oppo BDP-83 is now my HT Blu-ray player) I've noticed something "strange" about the audio on the PS3.  When in the theater, my PS3 was connected directly via HDMI to my Denon AVP pre/pro and the audio settings on the PS3 setup menu were set to "Auto" (meaning, I gather, that somehow the PS3 would send the proper audio signal and format to the AVP via HDMI).  It always worked like a charm with zero problems.  Now that the PS3 is no longer my primary Blu-ray player and is no longer connected to my Denon I experienced a similar situation to what was described by the initial poster.  I just got a new Mitsubishi Diamondvision 65" 1080p DLP RPM (Model WD65837) and was running it through its paces outside the HT while waiting for the stand to arrive (tomorrow).  I wanted to see how 1080p looked so I connected the PS3 to the new monitor via HDMI.  Granted, not the same audio as what I'll have in the main room, but I was more interested in the picture at this point anyway since audio will not be a problem.  I started watching the Blu-ray version of Sweeney Todd (5.1 DTS sound) and immediately noticed that I could hear some of the people who were singing, but not all of them.  The opening scene has Johnny Depp singing with the young sailor and I could only hear one of them although the both clearly were singing according to the picture.  I finally figured out that I was only hearing some of the 5.1 tracks and not all of them.  I suspect that's why you are hearing "thoughts" and not all the sounds you suspected would be there.  I knew that the Monitor was set up to received 5.1 sound (my choices are "stereo" and "surround") so I looked a little further.  When you go into the audio systems settings on the PS3 menu you can either choose "auto" or "manual."  In "manual" you select various sound options from a long list, checking as many as you feel are appropriate.  I chose all of the surround modes as well as stereo, figuring that if I did that then the sound that I chose from the DVD menu would get through.  Lo and behold, it worked like a charm.  My conclusion from this is that depending on what equipment you have your PS3 connected to, the "auto" audio setting may or may not work.  To play it safe, switch to "manual" in the PS3 audio menu and check off all the codecs you might encounter.  That should do the trick if your situation was in any way related to mine.

I hope that this helps.

 Thanks again for the advice everyone.

I thought I'd put the disc in to check (read: bookmark) which specific tracks I was having difficulty with so I could try your suggestions and see if any of them worked. And, lo and behold - there was no longer a problem with the audio. I then remembered that a friend had mentioned a week or so ago that there were a whole host of settings that one could change on the PS3 and that night I had gone and had a look and did changed some settings. I unfortunately can't remember exactly which settings I changed, but I know one of them was the upscaling option - I changed it to widescreen. I may also have shanged from Bitstream to PCM Stereo.

RAF, I took you advice and changed to manual - only one setting was not already checked - so I checked it and hopefully won't have any further problems.

You guys have been very helpful - thank you very much!!