1- Am I correct that all the new, uncompressed sound formats can ONLY be passed to the receiver through HDMI if they are not decoded within the player? And ONLY v1.3? (Won't work for me as my receiver doesn't have HDMI of any flavor).
Change "uncompressed" to "losslessly compressed." Uncompressed would be PCM, and then you only need 1.1, I believe. Yes, you're correct that they would have to be decoded in the player otherwise.
2- If you buy a player that decodes on-board AND has analog "outs", you gain the ability to send the already-decoded signal to the receiver via the receivers' analog "ins"? (Won't work for me as I already use the receiver's analog ins for SACD/DVD-A playback).
That's right.
3- Am I correct in reading that some Blu-Ray players decode SOME of the new sound formats on-board, but not others?
Correct.
4- Are there players that decode on-board, but send the now-decoded signal to the receiver via digital coax or optical Toslink?
No such luck.
5- If the answer to #4 is "no", I guess my only option would be to not have access to the uncompressed audio tracks on the discs I play. So what DO I get....Dolby Digital? And, I assume THAT is sent via optical or digital coax?
I haven't really read thoroughly on this, but I would assume either Dolby Digital or DTS depending on which variation of lossless codec is used. But yeah, I'm sure you can get some form of downgraded audio through optical or digital coax.
6- Is the PS3 frequently recommended simply as a good value, or is there also some flexibility it terms of decoding or outputs that would help someone in my situation?
There's no real flexibility. You'd need HDMI, and it only ouputs the new formats as already-decoded multichannel LPCM.
