what does pcm multichannel mean?

chris bruce · 11-20-2007, 05:26 PM

I just hooked up my new toshiba hda3 to my onkyo tx-sr803. When I used to watch normal dvd movies it would switch to dolby digital or dts on my receiver depending on what movie I was watching, mostly dd. But now when I put in tranformers hd on my new dvd player, my reciever is showing pcm multichannel. Is this what it should be showing? My receiver has hdmi inputs and that is what I am using. Please help

Echo42987 · 11-20-2007, 06:31 PM

No PCM probably isn't the setting you want it on. Most HD movies allow you to select what format of audio should be outputing.

If not then it's a setting on your onkyo player but it honestly sounds like it's just the HD player and you just need to change it really quick.

-Nick-

Jack Gilvey · 11-20-2007, 08:35 PM

Quote:

But now when I put in tranformers hd on my new dvd player, my reciever is showing pcm multichannel. Is this what it should be showing?

Yup, you're fine. Sounds like the player is decoding the DD+ track and sending it as a multichannel digital signal (PCM) to your receiver. Older formats (DD/DTS) can be sent as a bitstream to your Onkyo and displayed as DD/DTS, but by decoding the advanced formats like DD+ and TrueHD in the player, your receiver doesn't need decoding capability (you don't need a new one!), it just needs to accept MC PCM to get the full fidelity of the soundtrack.

Jeff Gatie · 11-21-2007, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Echo42987

No PCM probably isn't the setting you want it on. Most HD movies allow you to select what format of audio should be outputing.

If not then it's a setting on your onkyo player but it honestly sounds like it's just the HD player and you just need to change it really quick.

-Nick-

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Gilvey

Yup, you're fine. Sounds like the player is decoding the DD+ track and sending it as a multichannel digital signal (PCM) to your receiver. Older formats (DD/DTS) can be sent as a bitstream to your Onkyo and displayed as DD/DTS, but by decoding the advanced formats like DD+ and TrueHD in the player, your receiver doesn't need decoding capability (you don't need a new one!), it just needs to accept MC PCM to get the full fidelity of the soundtrack.

Jack is correct, Echo is incorrect. Multichannel PCM is the format of the HD audio (DD+/TrueHD) after it is decoded by the A3. Your setup is the way it is supposed to be.



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