Blu-ray player audio... How to hook up?

[DarthPrime]

I was looking at some information on Blu-rays tonight and finally got to thinking about audio hookups.

If you have a Blu-ray standalone player with 5.1 analog audio output, and a receiver with the 5.1 inputs all sites that I've looked at say to use these to get lossless audio from the Blu-rays.

What happens to DVDs, or Blu-rays without lossless audio if you use the 5.1 analog outputs? Do the Dolby, DTS signals still get passed to the receiver, or do you need to hook up a digital audio cable for these?

The receiver that I will be using does not have HDMI, so the only choice to pass the lossless audio would be though the analog outputs from what I have seen. Do I still need the digital audio cable, or will the 5.1 analogs do everything for me?

The more I read about audio options the more I get confused on the best way to hook things up.

[Mr. Toad]

One of the chief reasons I have not gone to Blu Ray, the audio is so confusing and I am not sure the players out there are complete yet for audio codecs. Does that require Profile 2.0?

Deathie, paging deathie.

[Blu_Gamma]

I was looking at some information on Blu-rays tonight and finally got to thinking about audio hookups.

If you have a Blu-ray standalone player with 5.1 analog audio output, and a receiver with the 5.1 inputs all sites that I've looked at say to use these to get lossless audio from the Blu-rays.

What happens to DVDs, or Blu-rays without lossless audio if you use the 5.1 analog outputs? Do the Dolby, DTS signals still get passed to the receiver, or do you need to hook up a digital audio cable for these?

The receiver that I will be using does not have HDMI, so the only choice to pass the lossless audio would be though the analog outputs from what I have seen. Do I still need the digital audio cable, or will the 5.1 analogs do everything for me?

The more I read about audio options the more I get confused on the best way to hook things up.

The player will decode the legacy codecs and output them from the anaologue outputs. Alternatively, you can use both a set of analogue cables and a digital cable if you like and just use the player to decode the lossless codecs and switch your A/V receiver back to its digital input and allow the receiver to decode the legacy codecs if that is what you prefer. You'll probably have to set your player to pass the legacy codecs (DTS, Dolby Digital) as bitstream.

[Mr. Toad]

I was looking at some information on Blu-rays tonight and finally got to thinking about audio hookups.

If you have a Blu-ray standalone player with 5.1 analog audio output, and a receiver with the 5.1 inputs all sites that I've looked at say to use these to get lossless audio from the Blu-rays.

What happens to DVDs, or Blu-rays without lossless audio if you use the 5.1 analog outputs? Do the Dolby, DTS signals still get passed to the receiver, or do you need to hook up a digital audio cable for these?

The receiver that I will be using does not have HDMI, so the only choice to pass the lossless audio would be though the analog outputs from what I have seen. Do I still need the digital audio cable, or will the 5.1 analogs do everything for me?

The more I read about audio options the more I get confused on the best way to hook things up.

The player will decode the legacy codecs and output them from the anaologue outputs. Alternatively, you can use both a set of analogue cables and a digital cable if you like and just use the player to decode the lossless codecs and switch your A/V receiver back to its digital input and allow the receiver to decode the legacy codecs if that is what you prefer. You'll probably have to set your player to pass the legacy codecs (DTS, Dolby Digital) as bitstream.

In plain language?

[Blu_Gamma]

The player will decode the legacy codecs and output them from the anaologue outputs. Alternatively, you can use both a set of analogue cables and a digital cable if you like and just use the player to decode the lossless codecs and switch your A/V receiver back to its digital input and allow the receiver to decode the legacy codecs if that is what you prefer. You'll probably have to set your player to pass the legacy codecs (DTS, Dolby Digital) as bitstream.

In plain language?

In plain language, if you use the analogue outputs on a Blu-ray player you can listen to the new advanced audio codecs (DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital +) and the legacy audio codecs (Dolby Digital, DTS) decoded, as well as uncompressed PCM through the analogue multichannel outputs and you can also still use the digital output on the player to bitstream the legacy audio codecs (Dolby Digital, DTS) to an A/V receiver to be decoded outside of the player. It should also be noted that none of this is dependent on whether the player is Profile 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0.

[DarthPrime]

So really if the player will decode and pass all the audio formats though the analog outputs there really isn't a need in using both analog and digital? Or would the digital output provide a better sound for the legacy audio formats?

[Blu_Gamma]

So really if the player will decode and pass all the audio formats though the analog outputs there really isn't a need in using both analog and digital? Or would the digital output provide a better sound for the legacy audio formats?

Well, which one sounds better at decoding the legacy formats is really a function of which component has the better DACs. If both are relatively equal, or even if not, you may also want to consider whether or not you want to apply any processing. Most A/V receivers do not allow for DSP processing on their analogue inputs, so if you use any sound processing currently, you may want to consider still using the digital output on your player to decode the legacy codecs in the receiver itself so processing can be applied. If you had an HDMI 1.3 capable receiver, you could also bitstream the new advanced audio codecs to the receiver and have them decoded in there and also apply processing to those codecs, but in all honesty, I do not recommend applying sound processing to any of the lossless codecs or to uncompressed PCM, because, IMO, it defeats the purpose of having them in the first place.