PCM vs Raw (1 Viewer)

[Don_K]

Just fell off the turnip truck, at least with respect to home theater. Your FAQ's cleared up a lot of my initial confusion. Still perplexed with one item tho...

My DVD player manual, Audio section, states "If you connect amplifier with DVD player's coaxial or optical output, please choose Raw or PCM in Digital Output column.

Can anyone clarify this for me?

Thanks,

Don

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Don, you want RAW, this will send the unaltered digital signal to your reciever. PCM would send the downmixed data like you would hear from the stereo RCA jacks

 

[Don_K]

Thanks, Jeff.

 

[John Garcia]

From another post asking a very similar question recently:

Are you asking about the PCM option in the Dolby Digital menu, or the PCM downmix menu? I just purchased a Panasonic that has three menus in the digital output section. I'm not sure if everybody is clear on what your inquiring about.

One is for whether the Dolby Digital signal will be output as Dolby, or be converted into a PCM prologic mix. This option should definitely be on 'bitstream.'

The next is for DTS. It should be set to 'bitstream' as well.

The third is for handling 96Khtz/24 bit signals (which are rare, but present). The Panasonic will not output these signals in their original form over the digital link, so you have one of two options here:
Switching to 'off' will allow the player to decode 96/24 signals without modification, but they will only be output through the analog RCA connections, and the digital port will turn off. Switching it to 'on' will downconvert the 96/24 to standard 48/16, which CAN be sent over the digital line.

Confusing? Yes it is. Basically the third option is deciding what the player will do with 96/24 signals: keep them intact, but only playable through the RCA connections, or downsampling to 48/16 so your reciever can do it through the digital link. Hope this helps.

courtesy of Jon D