Understanding HD-A2 Audio outs (1 Viewer)

[Wozzer]

So I have an Olevia 237V and Onkyo HT-SR800 HTiB system, and I'm getting a Toshiba HD-A2. The Olevia has 1 HDMI in, and the Onkyo has only 2in/1out 1080p HDMI pass-through. How should I hook them up?

Is there any point to putting the HD-A2 HDMI's output through the Onkyo? Or should I just put it straight to the TV? The HD-A2 will be my only HDMI device. Since it's only pass through, I still need a separate audio connection?

So if I understand correctly, the HD-A2 can decode TrueHD and Digital Plus, but only outputs 5.1 and only via HDMI (I thought the whole point of those two formats was to be 7.1 and 8ch)? But since my receiver doesn't receive audio over HDMI, this feature is useless to me right? The best thing I can do is a toslink, and then the HD-A2 will only output Dolby Digital 5.1 (old) sound? How come I can't get 7.1 sound from Digital Plus or TrueHD etc? The receiver doesn't decode TrueHD or Digital Plus I don't think.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Actually, the HD-A2 outputs multi-PCM streams that are decoded from the DD+ and TrueHD through the HDMI. This is a lossless process and is the only way to get the DD+/TrueHD soundtrack to your receiver. If you were to use the optical audio port, it only puts out a downmixed (lossy) DTS signal that the player generates from the DD+/TrueHD. So the preferred way to hook it up is through HDMI, since this will give you all the audio content with no loss/compression.

Edit: I notice you said the Onkyo only has HDMI passthrough. If this means it does not play HDMI audio and only passes through HDMI video, then the only choice you have is the optical downmixed DTS (which isn't bad at all) or to upgrade to a player with 7.1 analog outs.