Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Quick Question (I hope) about lossless & gear

I have two questions. I was hoping someone could help or direct me to an article or forum that could help. Thanks in advance.

I'm slowly upgrading my equipment at home. I just grabbed a used PS3 but realize it won't decode the HD Audio codecs. My question is if I grab a Toshiba HDA20 or A35, do I still need an AV receiver that has HDMI 1.3?

Or, since the HD DVD player is supposed to decode those signals, will a plain old toslink optical cable from DVD to an older receiver, like the Denon 3805 (I'm hoping to grab a used one locally at what I think is a great price) successfully transmit the lossless sound?

The second question is more general, and may be best answered by reference to an online article. What are the advantages or drawbacks of routing video signals through an AV receiver, rather than directly to the television?

Thanks again.

In answer to your second question, The only real advantage is if you have multiple sources, to switch between them. Or if you have sources with only composite and you want to upconvert those to HDMI or Component video.

Otherwise its just more crap in the signal chain.

The PS3 does decode HD Audio. You have to connect to a receiver that will support PCM through HDMI. The same goes with the Toshiba HD DVD players.
I use my Denon 4806 that I believe only has HDMI 1.1 but supports PCM through HDMI. So I get the HD sound formats.

I forgot to add that toslink will not transfer the HD sound formats, someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the bandwith is to large in the HD formats to be passed through optical.

You'll need analog outputs if the HDMI connection can't be used. I think that's the only other way to get the HD sound formats.

Hi Haoleb, thanks for response.

My only sources will be HD cable box (HDMI), PS3 (Component or HDMI), and DVD (also Component or HDMI). I believe there are enough HDMI or component inputs on my television to accomodate those.

Given those facts, and your response, would you say I shouldn't need to run video through the receiver?

Hi Homedad, thanks for response.

I should have said that the PS3 won't decode ALL of the HD Audio codecs...that is actually what I've heard (and might be closer to true?).

To paraphrase, to successfully listen to the lossless sound recordings, I would need to have a receiver that supported PCM (thanks, I just learned very briefly what pulse code modulation is). The Denon 3805 seems to, as specs quote PCM-1804, though more googling is required to understand. Anyway, once I get a receiver that supports PCM, I would need to make sure I have a cable that will transmit the large digital signal. You've said optical won't, so I suppose that is one big reason I would run an HDMI cable to the receiver, not necessarily to benefit video, but b/c it will carry all the audio info.

Let me know if I misinterpreted. If not, thanks very much!

Many of the HD players and I believe the PS3 is included won't decode lossless DTS. But play it in another manner that is beyond my expertise to describe. Although future updates may fix this.


That is correct, unless your receiver has better upscaling such as the Reon video processor that some of the new Onkyo's have it makes more sense as Haoleb stated to go video to video with as few connections as possible. The only reason I run my HDMI through my receiver from my PS3 and Toshiba HD player is for the lossless sound, my DirecTv box goes directly to the TV with HDMI for video and I use a toslink to my receiver for audio.

Hi Perc. I'll give you my 2 cents. If I'm wrong then I hope somebody will correct me.

I'll start with your video connections. Unless you are looking to take advantage of any upscaling capabilities then a direct connection to your TV will ensure optimum video quality for your hardware. Having said that, running HDMI from your cable box to your receiver would probably be ok since the broadcasts are not always top notch (as compared to HD DVD, etc.) so any loss in video quality would be negligible. I would also recommend calibrating your TV inputs by way of a calibration disc (DVE or Avia). I have used DVE and it made a huge improvement.

Your questions about lossless audio are more difficult to answer and may involve you doing some research on your own and I will try to point you in the right direction. Let me also add that I am currently researching the newer technologies because I will be upgrading my receiver in the near future.

A toslink cable is incapable of transmitting a lossless audio signal. From what I've read, the jury is still out on the necessity of HDMI 1.3 Currently Blu Ray owners are able to access the lossless audio via PCM but that may change once Blu Ray starts utilizing such features as PIP. At this point I believe the player will decode the audio and pass it to the receiver so HDMI 1.3 and the ability to decode the lossless audio would be a moot point on the receiver.

The same goes for HD DVD. Yes receivers are able to decode the lossless audio codecs (True HD, DTS Master) but the lossless audio isn't accessible unless the HD DVD is authored as basic. Most HD DVDs are authored as advanced. This is what provides things as PIP (picture in picture), fancy directory commentaries and fancy menus to name a few.

Here are a couple of interesting reads. I encourage you to read and come to your own conclusion.

<a href="http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789994" target="_blank"> <b>Why You Don't Need HDMI 1.3</b></a>

<a href="http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=867502&page=1&pp=30" target="_blank"> <b> HDMI 1.1 X 1.3 for new HD AUdio Formats</b></a>

Sorry, here are functional links.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789994

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=867502&page=1&pp=30

Perc, welcome. I'll comment on one point: there's no bandwidth or other problem involving transmission capacity that would prevent either toslink or a regular digital coaxial cable from being used for these formats. The problem is copy protection paranoia and only a digital transmission link with inherent copy protection(e.g. HDMI)or an analog link can be used. Toslink is inherently a digital link and for that reason can't be used, but it has nothing to do with inadequate bandwidth.

JohnK, is that true? Do you have a source to cite? It seems like I've always heard that bandwidth was indeed an issue, at least for toslink. I don't remember hearing one way or another for digital coax.

From High-Def Digest. Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Explained A good article for the HD sound formats.

Oh, hey, I was actually just reading that article last week. I obviously didn't read it with enough mental presence.

You retained enough to remember about the bandwidth.

Homedad: thanks for confirming.

JohnK: thanks for clarifying why Toslink won't work.

Pickupmykeys: Thanks for the tip on calibrating...sounds like fun and I've never done it before. As for the articles, I read one in it's entirety but the other had so many pages I didn't get through it all.

From Bob P.'s article, it seems like when he wrote that, no players were decoding DTS-HD MA. But now, with the likes of the Toshiba A35, which per their website decodes both lossless formats, and is HDMI 1.3, I don't understand why it wouldn't work. Maybe the answer was in the other article and will just require a free evening to read through it all. Thanks for the help.

Yes, Toshiba makes Toslinks(Toshiba links)available in various bandwidths, as shown in their Product Guide . If it was otherwise acceptable bandwidth wouldn't be a problem.

Hello again Perc.

The PS3 will output the HD audio track or PCM track via MPCM over HDMI.

There is so much information to sift through (not to mention all the vague marketing drivel). With regards to the HD DVD player, I think the answer to your question is no you don't require a receiver that is 1.3 so long as your receiver can accept MPCM via HDMI. The player will decode the audio and send it to your receiver as PCM.

As long as the HD player will decode the audio HDMI 1.3 is not needed.HDMI 1.1 or 1.2 will do the trick.
Where HDMI 1.3 is needed on both devices is if the audio is not decoded by the HD player and is sent via bitsreem to the receiver.
This may be necessary for DTS HD when some of the players update to transfer DTS in bitsream only, so the receiver would need to be HDMI 1.3 compliant to decode the DTS HD signal.

The PS3 will decode every codec with the exception of DTS-M. It is rumored that there will be a firmware update coming before Christmas to address this, and I have no reason to not believe it. Sony has been very forthcoming with firmware updates for the PS3. Sony has been pushing updates to this machine at a very impressive rate. If you do have a DTS-M only Blu Ray disk, you will not get lossless sound, but you will get the “core” DTS audio stream that is embedded in the DTS-M stream (I can verify this with the Blu Ray disk Condemned that I have).

As Homedad noted, you will need a receiver with HDMI 1.1 or greater to hear Lossless sound from the PS3. The PS3 does not have analogue outputs.

The A35 decodes both DD TrueHD and DTS-M. I’m not certain, but I think the Samsung has a player that decodes all the formats as well with a newly released firmware update. No others do from what I understand. The Toshiba HD-X2 is also rumored to have a new firmware update coming out soon to enable DTS-M and DD TrueHD decoding. Hard telling if it will work correctly as Toshiba’s firmware updates tend to come with bugs that need additional firmware updates to address. (for that reason, I am hesitant to buy an X2 and am probably going to buy the A35 because it works correctly out of the box)

If you decide to use a non HDMI receiver and use its 7 channel analogue inputs, you will not be able to use the receiver’s Bass Management functions and will have to rely of whatever the source player provides, and you will be limited to only one device unless you like to pull and plug in different device cables every time you use a different player.

The other option of course, is to buy a HDMI 1.3 receiver that is KNOWN to decode DTS-M and DD TrueHD. The new Denons and Onkyo’s do this. I’m not sure about the new Yamaha’s or any other unit for that matter……I stopped reading the AVS threads a while ago. There is a debate going on (which I have no opinion to who is right) that there is an advantage with the audio processor doing the decoding verses the player. If the player does the decoding, it will send a multi-channel PCM audio stream to the audio processor. If the audio processor has the ability to recognize and decode the codecs, the player will send the audio processor a lossless bitstream audio stream to the receiver and the receiver decodes it to PCM for further surround processing.

Some folks think the audio processor will do a better job at decoding the data, others feel this is hogwash and an X is an X and an O is an O so there should be no audible differences. This is a debate I do not care to get into any more than speaker wires, speaker break in or DAC comparisons….. Not worth the effort to me.

Bandwidth limitations are something that I’m not too sure about. I’m not sure if Toslink or Coax can carry a full 24 bit / 96 Hz X 7 channel data steam (DTS-M and DD TrueHD), PLUS 1080P/60 video data with 16 bit True Color. I think it may be beyond Toslink capacity, but again, I’m not sure. It really doesn’t matter anyway seeing how HDCP is embedded in the HD data streams and only HDMI provides the required handshake data path for this to occur.

Pickupmykeys: thanks for breaking it right down to a simple statement.

HomeDad: thanks for clearly pointing out that HDMI 1.1 would be required to make my planned for set-up partially future proof. Until you reiterated, I hadn't realized that the 3805 I've looked at may not be a great choice (no HDMI).

mdrew: Have you heard any predictions on when the XA2 may get a firmware update that allowed the various HD audio encoding? The common conception seems to be that the XA2 (with Reon) significantly better upconverts regular DVD's, and given there is nowhere convenient for me to readily rent HD content movies in my neck of Vancouver, that is very important. If the issue was rumoured to be resolved soon, I would probably hold off on buying an A35.

If I had the money, I would buy a receiver with HDMI 1.3 but the only new Denon 3808 that I can afford is off ebay has no warranty (and the third party warranty isn't available to non USA residents). The price of the Onkyo 875 also makes it impractical, plus I hope to one day have an Epic M80 system and I've read too many warnings about Onkyo amps and M80s. (The dream is to have an acoustically transparent projector screen with an M80 hiding behind it as centre channel, with two others as front...though as of yet I have neither a space in my home nor the savings account to achieve that dream).

Thanks to everyone for the help.

The XA2 already has the firmware updates for HD audio encoding, Toshiba has also confirmed that they are working on a firmware upgrade that will allow bit stream audio over HDMI on the XA2.

Any word on if it is glitchy as mdrew noted the fixes often are?

I own the XA2 and I've never had a glitch or problem with it after updating. Imo the player is one of the best out there and with it's Reon processor it far exceeds the performance of any upscaling DVD player I've owned in the past.

I'm waiting on an upgrade disk from Toshiba. Hopefully there will be no technical glitches.

You could always run a cat 5 from your computer and update over the net automatically. Toshiba always sends me the discs but I've usually already done the upgrade.

I figured the disc would be the easiest. I run off of a wireless connection. My housemate has the router in his room. Just didn't want to bother him. I'm in no big hurry, anyway.

I wouldn't bother him either...

Time to install that doorlock.


Oh yeah, and buy a shotgun.

Hehe...

I watched the first 3 episodes of Firefly this weekend. I guess all that talk of Reavers made me think of him.

That's kinda creepy. He would make a good Reaver.

The X2 firmware pushes that I have been following first started out with a 1080P/24 push that was to enable the machine to pull off of the disk the native / non processed 1080P/24 data. It did not do this correctly and a subsequent firmware revision corrected this. Prior to that mess, the X2 had faulty bass management and the first firmware push was to resolve this and some DVI / HMDI issues. The first firmware push did not resolve the bass issues and a subsequent push took care of this. I believe that Homedad bought his after these problems were finally addressed. It is for those two instances that I am aware of that I made the firmware comments above. Toshiba may not always get it right the first time, but they do endeavor to get it right.

The X2 is still Toshiba’s flagship player. It has a better build quality to it, it has the Reon with noise reduction for better SD upconversion, and I also think it’s a better looking machine. If…Toshiba does push out another firmware update to allow it to push the bitstream formats for DTS-M and DD True HD, then this would be the machine to buy. I was not aware that it already decodes DTS-M. I had read differently at AVS (go figure).

I am currently using an A2 and I hate it. It’s a cheap plastic POS compared to the X1 I had. The only reason I bought it was the faster load times it has over the X1. I am waiting to hear what Toshiba does with the X2 before I buy another unit. I also want to know for certain what the start up and load times are for both the X2 and A35.

Mike, just trying to avoid confusion. When you say "X2," are you referring to the XA2? I can't seem to find an "X2" model.

Sorry Jack, yes I meant the XA2. I know I should take more time with model numbers and just responding in general, but I just can't seam to slow down. I supose I should get back on the ridlin....

No problem, Mike. I just wanted to be sure I was on the right page. Thanks for the clarification.

I take it back, Toshiba still hasn’t fixed the 1080P/24 issue, or the bass management either. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=926384

Mike, does the 1080p/24 update improve picture quality. I've read Toshiba's explanation but I'm still not technically proficient enough to understand the nuts and bolts behind the update. Is this mainly for users that have 1080p resolution or does this have any impact on 720p or 1080i resolutions. On the AVS forum it also sounded like they were talking about lip sync issues which I've never had a problem with.

Get what???

The picture of the guy.

Jeffrey Dahmer.

*rolls eyes*

C'mon, Ken, get with it!

Oh, him. I was trying to say that Sean's roomate could be like Jeffery Dahmer.

I know, stupid...

Oh fine. I suspected something similar.

Ken, here's a clue.

I know who Dahmer is, I just didn't know what he looked like.