PS3 surround sound problem

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Kiwibeaker

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#72566 29-Nov-2010 12:20

Hi.

I am having trouble getting surround sound out of my ps3 while playing blu rays. It plays surround for games and even when the lion roars at the beginning of some blu ray discs but when the movie starts it only plays in 2.1.

My set up is as follows:

PS3 80GB connected via hdmi cable to a Sony STR-km7000 7.2 receiver.

I have tried an optical cable but still get the same result. I'm not sure if it's settings on the ps3 or reciever or both which are causing the problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as its really very annoying! Thanks.

Disrespective

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#410662 29-Nov-2010 12:55

Are you sure that the film is 5.1? Can you select a different audio stream from the menu? It's clear your 5.1 system works if it works for games and the 'lion' so i'd say it's a movie issue.

lchiu7

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#410671 29-Nov-2010 13:05

A shot in the dark but a quick look at the specs of the Sony reveal it does not support Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master, jsut Dolby Digital and DTS. But it does support multichannel PCM audio over HDMI.

The PS3 can be set to ouput either a bitstream signal (that is the raw bits off the disc) or PCM (it decodes the bitstream DD or DTS off the disc and just the decoded signal down as PCM).

If you have your PS3 set to output bitstream, then the bistream signal (DD or DS) passes unchanged over S/PDIF or HDMI to your Sony, is decoded and your hear all the channels. For games or trailers on a BD title, the audio signal is usually just DD 5.1.

But once you get to the movie, it's likely the default track is Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master. If you asking the PS3 to send that down over bitstream, you will only hear multichannel audio if 1) you have the PS3 slim (the fat did not bitstream HD audio) and your receiver can handle bitstreamed HD audio over HDMI. It doesn't appear the Sony does from reading the manual.

But you can get over that. Tell the PS3 to decode HD audio internally and set the output format to PCM. It seems as if your Sony receiver can handle multichannel audio over PCM (MLPCM) via HDMI and this way you will get multichannel audio.

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#411017 30-Nov-2010 09:13

lchiu7: A shot in the dark but a quick look at the specs of the Sony reveal it does not support Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master, jsut Dolby Digital and DTS. But it does support multichannel PCM audio over HDMI.

The PS3 can be set to ouput either a bitstream signal (that is the raw bits off the disc) or PCM (it decodes the bitstream DD or DTS off the disc and just the decoded signal down as PCM).

+1, what he said.
I suspect this will be your problem. PS3 is not set to do any internal decoding and is just passing the still encoded info to your receiver. If your receiver can not decode this itself then you wont hear anything in these parts.

If your receiver can handle decoded raw lpcm then set the PS3 to decode itself and then the receiver won't have anything complicated anymore.

timmmay

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#411212 30-Nov-2010 14:26

My PS3 does 5.1 fine, my Onkyo receiver handles all the decoding though.

steve98

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#411243 30-Nov-2010 15:28

timmmay: My PS3 does 5.1 fine, my Onkyo receiver handles all the decoding though.

When you first set optical as the sound output option on the PS3 it asks you to check all the different signals that your receiver can handle and uncheck the ones it can't. Have you double-checked that these are set correctly?

timmmay

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#411259 30-Nov-2010 16:09

steve98:
timmmay: My PS3 does 5.1 fine, my Onkyo receiver handles all the decoding though.

When you first set optical as the sound output option on the PS3 it asks you to check all the different signals that your receiver can handle and uncheck the ones it can't. Have you double-checked that these are set correctly?

All I did was plug the HDMI cable into the receiver, I didn't use an optical cable or change any settings.