Panasonic BD45/BD65 and AV Receiver without HD Audio decode

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whizbang

31 posts

Geek

#70493 25-Oct-2010 11:04

Hi,

Looking at either a Panasonic BD45 or BD65 blu ray player to buy for a friends setup.

My friend has an Onkyo TX-SR-576 AV Recevier, it has HDMI inputs, but no HD Audio decode on the receiver, it is a full 5.1 setup. He still wants surround sound out of the receiver (just like he gets from a DVD with Dolby Digital) when playing blu-rays. Is the BD45 able to do this? Or is the BD65 necessary as it has more HD decoding ability on-board?

Has anyone tried this setup? It would be very disappointing to recommend buying one of these blu-ray players only to get 2 channel stereo sound out of the receiver. We can directly connect the blu-ray player to the receiver via HDMI

Thanks!

ilovemusic

1439 posts

Uber Geek

#395574 25-Oct-2010 20:49

In the setup menu of the BD45/65 you can set the HDMI audio output to PCM, which should be compatible with your AVR.

HD audio codecs will be converted to PCM, which will be fine with the Onkyo as long as it's running HDMI 1.1 or higher.

Jaxson

8042 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#396163 27-Oct-2010 11:04

Yes I can confirm this as I currently have that same Onkyo. The 576 can accept 7.1 channel LPCM data, so if your bluray player can decode internally then you can play full HD audio sound.

I use mine with the origianal fat PS3 which could only decode internally anyway, so it's an ideal match.

In this orientation (connected via hdmi) you can still use the audessy calibration equaliser but obviously your receiver will never show an HD audio light on the front or anything, just the words multichannel on the front.

elldizzle

91 posts

Master Geek

#396236 27-Oct-2010 12:54

From all the debates ive read ever since the new HD audio standards came out. Is that there is no difference in sound between Bitstreamed HD audio and LPCM.

Jaxson

8042 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#396242 27-Oct-2010 13:02

Yeah the audio info on the bluray disc is essentially in a .zip type format. Something has to expand/unzip the file before it can be played. This can either be done at the player, or at the receiver but the end result is the same final output.

One point to consider is that if you send HD audio out via analogue RCA outputs then typically the receiver will not apply any distance/speaker EQ compensation/subwoofer cutoff frequency details etc to that source, so you have to recreate the wheel inside the player itself.
* Note this doesn't apply to hdmi transmission as being discussed here.