How to wire Blu-ray home theater

AMG762

Thanks for that. I'm a bit lost now don't fully understand the linear Pcm bit.

The blu ray films will be played directly on the new home cinema now so that will sort the films.

I will still need the best possible surround sound from the ps3 for the games.

Would it make any difference or still better through hdmi as suggested?

Toxteth_OGrady

HDMI LPCM will give you the best possible sound from your fat ps3 but it depends on the source material.

If a game is only coded to output Dolby Digital 5.1 then that is the best you will get over HDMI. If however a game has HD audio then you will get HD audio over HDMI.

If you use optical the cable will always limit you to DD 5.1 whatever the source. DD 5.1 is a compressed, lossy format.

Toxteth_OGrady

AMG762 wrote: »

don't fully understand the linear Pcm bit.

LPCM is raw digital audio used by your amplifier. It is decoded from the compressed source (DTS-MA, DD etc). HD audio is compressed as lossless, DD is lossy. The decoding can be done be done by a player or an amp.

When the decoding is done by an amp it has to receive the encoded, compressed audio information from the source over HDMI as a bitstream. Your fat ps3 doesn't do this over HDMI (although the slim does output bitstream).

So your ps3 has to do the decoding and then pass the raw digital audio as multichannel LPCM to the amp to then produce the sound.

InsideInsurance

AMG762 wrote: »

Would it make any difference or still better through hdmi as suggested?

As said, there were sound limitations on the Fat PS3, these are relatively easily got around by following the suggestions above and changing the settings so that the PS3 is the one that is decoding the sound and connecting it via HDMI so that the amp simply plays what its told per channel.

For an all in one solution like you've got there is probably very little difference in quality of decoding between the PS3 and the amp. If you had a higher end system then there is more arguments that you want the amp/avr to be doing the decoding and so having a Fat PS3 is more of a limitation, especially as a blu ray player.

almillar

You've got all the information above.
You'll have no problems with the PS3 going HDMI only into the amp. Once you do this, make sure you run through the display and sound settings on the PS3.
Your Sky box, similarly, can run HDMI through the amp. The Sky box is limited to 2 channel only over HDMI so you need to add an optical cable between Sky box and amp.
Optionally, disconnect the Sky's HDMI from the back of the amp, and put it straight to TV. This is down to personal preference, and is the way I do it. Why? Less delay switching on the TV, and allows me to watch Sky without using the amp.