hey longtime no post i have a question(DUH!!)if i play my blu-ray thru my my reciever thru HDMI will it downconvert the sound or will the blu-ray plyr do it?and if neither will that lossless data hurt my speakers? thank ya'll in advance.

Depends on your receiver. What is it, what version of HDMI does it have, and what sound formats does it accept?

Also depends on your BD player. What is it, does it bitstream new audio formats, or is it capable of converting the new audio formats to 5.1 or 7.1 LPCM?

Basically, if your receiver is older and isn't capable of processing the new HD audio formats, then the best situation for lossless audio is if it can accept 5.1/7.1 LPCM, *and* your BD player is capable of converting HD audio to LPCM. Most HDMI receivers can accept 5.1 LPCM, but not every BD player is capable of converting HD audio to full effect. Some will only read the 1.5mbit core track from DTS-HD Master Audio tracks, and some can only output stereo using the new formats.

If you have a newer receiver than can process HD audio, then most people would want to bitstream audio directly to it. Many BD players can do this with TrueHD, but only a few can do it with DTS-HD Master.

Otherwise, if your receiver can't take 5.1 LPCM or the new audio formats, then you're going to be stuck with Dolby Digital and DTS (possibly at higher bitrates than normal DVDs, though).

thanks daniel, my rcvr is the ONKYO TX-SR803 AND THE SHARP BD-HP20 BLU-RAY plyr i'll just have to hook it up and see if the rcvr can take a 5.1 LPCM bitstream.

OK, the TX-SR803 is HDMI 1.1, so it can receive 5.1 LPCM. The BD-HP20 will internally decode TrueHD, however it can do nothing with lossless DTS-MA, so you will only hear the 1.5mbit core DTS track.

I just noticed your thread title mentions DD+ (higher bitrate but not lossless Dolby Digital); there arent too many BDs making use of that, most fall back to normal DD or go all the way to some lossless format.

I don't think anyone uses it. DD+ was used by HD DVD because they could not offer full DD, but there is very little advantage going from DD to DD+ unless you want to go to 7.1

Looks like with the BD spec, DD+ would only ever be used for titles that need 6.1 or 7.1 channels (while on HD-DVD it can be used for any number of channels).

a bit more thenb that, on HD DVD (like DVD) you could not offer the full DD track. The only way to do that was to go to DD+. So a DD on BD is the same (for all intense and purposes) as DD+ on HD DVD.


anyways, it is a bit of a moot point since many studios have gotten the point and are offering lossless.