Anyway, I'm stoked that the 5.1 works fine over AC3. I only turn on the receiver when there is a genuine 5.1 source as I hate the results of the 'theatre' or other mode that simulates 5.1 from a 2 channel source. I'd naturally prefer it to revert to PCM and the basic mpeg audio when DD is not available. Or wish one of the outputs, AC3 or PCM, would work for both audio options with my reciever for both audio output types.
Jaxson and others, can I suggest you make this known to Peter at Satlink, because those of us with AC3 Dolby Digital decoding really find the current situation less than ideal. I'm not sure if the Chinese manufacturer understands what's required. Part of the difficulty maybe that the default audio track on Freeview is AAC/MPG. Currently only TV1 and TV3 use AC3 as their secondary but far superior sound track. If all Freeview channels moved to this configuration, we could just set AC3 in the ET, and we'd all be happy, but currently if we choose AC3, there's zero output over optical/coax for the other channels.