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Yamaha RX V1400 and Blu-ray

post #1 of 4
3/16/10 at 1:13pm
Thread Starter 
I am looking to get a BD player and I am wondering what I will miss audio wise with my receiver?

It does not have HDMI inputs so I was going to go HDMI from a player to my flatscreen and then not sure what to do about the audio?

I have read a little and I may be missing something if I use the coax or optical out?

Can someone explain what I will be missing?



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post #2 of 4
3/16/10 at 1:58pm
The lossless audio codecs found exclusively on Blu-Ray (Dolby HD and DTS Master Audio) can only be output either via HDMI, or through the use of multichannel analog outputs (the latter case has the player do the decoding and the receiver simply routs the signals to the speakers).

Using standard digital coax or digital optical audio connection will only allow you to hear the lossy Dolby Digital or DTS audio stream.  In many cases, these streams are identical to their counterparts on DVD, however, on some occassions they are encoded at a higher bitrate, so they could be considered marginal improvements from the DVD.

In my experience, the improvement from lossy to lossless was quite significant (I am using multichannel analog connections).  Center channel dialog was much clearer, and overall sound fidelity was crisper than DVD.
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post #3 of 4
3/16/10 at 4:33pm
Thread Starter 
Hmm, what to do?  I do want to upgrade my receiver soon so I wonder if I should just live with the optical out for a while rather than ponying up for a more expensive BD player.

One of the players I have found that has the analog outs is the Panasonic DMP-BD85K.

You say that you use the analog connections, do you have the option of routing the HDMI through your receiver but choose to go analog for better sound or are you in my situation where you receiver does not have that option?
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post #4 of 4
3/16/10 at 7:03pm
My receiver is HDMI "Pass through" not "Repeater" so it doesn't process audio carried via HDMI.  I still use HDMI for the video, but the audio is done separately.  I have an older model Panasonic and have been very happy with it.

One drawback to using the analog connections is that many receivers that have analog inputs do not allow any bass-management (or other processing) to be done for those inputs.

If a new receiver is in the near future for you, I would probably make do with the coaxial connection for now, and just make sure that whatever receiver you get is HDMI "Repeater".  Onkyo is a highly recommended brand around here - models from the 507 on up are all HMDI repeaters.
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