Chuck Mayer

Basic HDMI/Receiver question

Folks,
Trying to answer a question for a friend. And questioning my own meager knowledge.

He's buying a relatively inexpensive player ($250) and wants to ensure it'll be useful for a while (he's cheap, what can I say). It does the basic decoding, but I want to ensure he's ready for the new audio formats. Is it a correct assumption to state that most HDM players perform the decoding of dts-ma, TrueHD, and PCM now, and send that audio data to a receiver via the HDMI cable?

Thanks for the wisdom,
Chuck

Shane Martin

Re: Basic HDMI/Receiver question

No. It's player dependent. ALL HD DVD players will be fine. It's on the BR side where the issue is more prevelant. For instance the Sony S300 doesn't decode any lossless audio formats.

Also as of now, there aren't any current players capable of decoding DTS MA and sending it via HDMI as PCM yet. That might change later on.