shockt327
Grip
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2007
- Messages
- 16
- Real Name
- Jango
I have two major questions....one about HDMI receivers and the other about audio codecs (True HD/DTS HD/PCM)
The long version: The Sony BDP-301 was purchased as a Christmas gift for my family. Since I'm the one who is most knowledgeable about HT (read as: barely above-average knowledge) I'm responsible for hooking it up/making sure everything is compatible/ect. I was looking into a Blu-ray player for awhile so I know a little bit about what I wanted. But I held off cause my receiver isn't HDMI compatible (nor was I sure about the format war).
Anyway, my reciever is currently a Onkyo TX-SR603. Great receiver, bought it last year but no HDMI hookups. What a bonehead move right? Well, not really. I got it with full knowledge that it would be somewhat-obsolete, so I bought the Circuit City protection plan and I can simply take it back and get this years model....the TX-SR605 (or pay the difference for a better model!)
So question #1: What receiver should I get?
I'm pretty brand loyal to Onkyo. And I want something that can support HDMI, and and can encode Dolby True HD/DTS-DH (more below). What else should I look for that I don't even know about? I'm sure there is quite a bit. But as I said, I'm leaning toward the Onkyo TX-SR605
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The Sony BDP-301 is great. I have an older Samsung 42" DLP 1080i that I've had since 2003, and the picture it outputs is better than almost anything I've seen on that TV (The only disks I have are The Terminator & T2: Judgment Day...as if you need anything else ) I gotta say I was pretty happy with the player considering it was sort of a blind-buy, considering the fact that no one in the house really knows too much about HT.
However, the lack of Dolby True HD/DTS-HD is a severe disappointment. It isn't a big deal right now cause my receiver can't decode it....but when I upgrade it will be a problem. Why? Not totally sure. I really can't say I know a whole lot. Just that the HD audio is uncompressed, which means better bitrate, right? More bitrate=better sound, right? And who doesn't want better sound? Well, I do know that the BDP-301 does decode LPCM and output it via HDMI....but I just don't know how that works. I know my current reciever can handle PCM, but it decodes it as Pro-logic or NEO:6....which just isn't as good, right? For example, when I played T2, it would decode the PCM as Pro-logic, so I switched to the DTS track. I sounds great, but it's still compressed audio, and I'm dying to hear what uncompressed audio is like.
So my next questions are:
#2: What exactly is (L?)PCM and how should a receiver decode it?
#3: Should I take my The Sony BDP-301 back and get a player than can output TrueHD? (cause I'm dedicated to hearing uncompressed audio)
#4: Is question #3 even relevant if I get a new receiver that can decode TrueHD? I'm not sure if this is right, but if I have a receiver than can decode the raw PCM audio track, then I can set the receiver to decode it as Dolby True HD/DTS-HD, right? And that is just as good as having a player than can decode it, right? Not sure how that works....cause my current receiver couldn't decode the PCM track into 5.1 (it played as ProLogic)....so I had to manually switch the output on the BDP-301 player to DTS. Or is this just because my old receiver really can't decode PCM? I'm sensing that this is the difference between LPCM and PCM....which is still don't know the difference between (see question #2, lol ).
#5: I heard that there will be a firmware update for the Sony BDP-301 that will allow it to encode True HD
That sounds wonderful....I just wish I knew what Firmware was, and how to use it.
Thanks for the help, and sorry for the long winded nature of my post!
The long version: The Sony BDP-301 was purchased as a Christmas gift for my family. Since I'm the one who is most knowledgeable about HT (read as: barely above-average knowledge) I'm responsible for hooking it up/making sure everything is compatible/ect. I was looking into a Blu-ray player for awhile so I know a little bit about what I wanted. But I held off cause my receiver isn't HDMI compatible (nor was I sure about the format war).
Anyway, my reciever is currently a Onkyo TX-SR603. Great receiver, bought it last year but no HDMI hookups. What a bonehead move right? Well, not really. I got it with full knowledge that it would be somewhat-obsolete, so I bought the Circuit City protection plan and I can simply take it back and get this years model....the TX-SR605 (or pay the difference for a better model!)
So question #1: What receiver should I get?
I'm pretty brand loyal to Onkyo. And I want something that can support HDMI, and and can encode Dolby True HD/DTS-DH (more below). What else should I look for that I don't even know about? I'm sure there is quite a bit. But as I said, I'm leaning toward the Onkyo TX-SR605
-------------------------------------------------
The Sony BDP-301 is great. I have an older Samsung 42" DLP 1080i that I've had since 2003, and the picture it outputs is better than almost anything I've seen on that TV (The only disks I have are The Terminator & T2: Judgment Day...as if you need anything else ) I gotta say I was pretty happy with the player considering it was sort of a blind-buy, considering the fact that no one in the house really knows too much about HT.
However, the lack of Dolby True HD/DTS-HD is a severe disappointment. It isn't a big deal right now cause my receiver can't decode it....but when I upgrade it will be a problem. Why? Not totally sure. I really can't say I know a whole lot. Just that the HD audio is uncompressed, which means better bitrate, right? More bitrate=better sound, right? And who doesn't want better sound? Well, I do know that the BDP-301 does decode LPCM and output it via HDMI....but I just don't know how that works. I know my current reciever can handle PCM, but it decodes it as Pro-logic or NEO:6....which just isn't as good, right? For example, when I played T2, it would decode the PCM as Pro-logic, so I switched to the DTS track. I sounds great, but it's still compressed audio, and I'm dying to hear what uncompressed audio is like.
So my next questions are:
#2: What exactly is (L?)PCM and how should a receiver decode it?
#3: Should I take my The Sony BDP-301 back and get a player than can output TrueHD? (cause I'm dedicated to hearing uncompressed audio)
#4: Is question #3 even relevant if I get a new receiver that can decode TrueHD? I'm not sure if this is right, but if I have a receiver than can decode the raw PCM audio track, then I can set the receiver to decode it as Dolby True HD/DTS-HD, right? And that is just as good as having a player than can decode it, right? Not sure how that works....cause my current receiver couldn't decode the PCM track into 5.1 (it played as ProLogic)....so I had to manually switch the output on the BDP-301 player to DTS. Or is this just because my old receiver really can't decode PCM? I'm sensing that this is the difference between LPCM and PCM....which is still don't know the difference between (see question #2, lol ).
#5: I heard that there will be a firmware update for the Sony BDP-301 that will allow it to encode True HD
That sounds wonderful....I just wish I knew what Firmware was, and how to use it.
Thanks for the help, and sorry for the long winded nature of my post!