Audio Setup
 

I just purchased a Pioneer VSX-91TXH Elite Receiver to be able to fully enjoy my Sony BDP-S1 Blu-Ray player. The Pioneer has decoding capablilties for Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD Master Audio. No problem setting up the receiver. The one question I have regards the the audio setup choice for HDMI. Do I select auto or PCM. Regardless of what audio select I choose on the DVD, True HD or PCM 5.1 (uncompressed) the display on the Pioneer shows PCM. I have read many reviews and they talk about sending umcompressed PCM to the receiver? All I want to know is which audio setup option to select.

Re: Audio Setup
 

As far as I know right now no player will send undecoded TrueHD to your receiver, it's decoded in the player then sent to the receiver as Multi channel PCM (That's what my Denon 3808ci calls it).
I do know even with it decoded in the player it sounds better than the old DD or DTS does.

I know a future firmware upgrade on the PS3 is supposed to allow it to pass to the receiver to be decoded (and that will light up the TrueHD light) but no date has been announced for that update.
I'm not sure about the updates for your S-1.

Re: Audio Setup
 

Thanks for the response. So I guess you're saying it doesn't make any difference if I select auto or PCM?

Re: Audio Setup
 

Probably not right now but I'd go ahead & hit auto if it will choose the best format on it's own, I'm not familiar with your Pioneer receiver though so you may want to ask someone with your receiver.

Re: Audio Setup
 

The Sony BDP-S1 can only internally decode Dolby TrueHD and send it via PCM through HDMI to the receiver. It is not capable of sending the bitstream data to the receiver for decoding. The player supports internal decoding of DTS HD HR, but does not support internal decoding of DTS Master HD audio. With Master HD audio the player strips the DTS core audio stream which is the same bitrate and stream that you would get from DTS on an SD DVD.

So, since your player has to do the internal decoding of all the formats, set your player to out PCM over bitstream. This insures that whichever audio track you select to play, the player will uniformily send it to the receiver as PCM. I do not trust the AUTO feature to select the correct output when switching between bitstream DVDs and PCM Blu-rays and TrueHD Blu-rays. Stick with PCM and you can't go wrong.

Re: Audio Setup
 

The Samsung BD-P1400 has complete support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master HD. Both can be outputted as bitstream for the receiver to decode. Some users say it is glitchy, but it has worked practically flawlessly for me.