Hi,

I bought myself a Samsung BDP1500 hooked it up as follows...

HDMI from player to TV and Optical to my Yamaha 661. But when I watched the movie it was only showing 2 ch on the receiver although there were very faint sounds from the rear surrounds.

I have done something wrong but don't know what?

Can anyone tell me what it is please?

Thanks

You will have to see how your player deals with digital connections (optical or not). In order to get 5.1 from BD multichannel PCM (or DolbyTrueHD-DTSHDMA), the player will need to either "flatten" all channels into 2-channel PCM, which will then need to be re-expanded by one of the stereo-multich DSP problems (PLIIx, Neo:6...), or it possesses the chips to re-encode in Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1. The latter is unlikely in my opinion.

In the BD audio disk, there might be regular DD5.1 or DTS audio tracks.

To get "proper" BD audio, you need either an HDMI connection (which I presume your receiver does not have otherwise you would already be using that! ) or you need to use 6-8 analog cables if your player has multichannel analog outputs.

I would try to run the HDMI from the BDP1500 to the receiver then run another HDMI cable from the receiver to the Samsung. I don't beleive the 661 decodes the new HD sound formats, but that should work for everything else.

I have 2 HDMI in and 1 HDMI out on the receiver. I always thought it was better to let the tv do the up scaling etc.

I have 1 HDMI plugged into the HDMI out on the receiver going to HDMI in on the TV. I then have HDMI going from the BR player to the TV and Optical to the Optical in on the receiver.

On the BR Player I selected Dolby Digital 5.1 in the Audio setup screen, but it only plyed in 2 ch.

So am I better off to run HDMI from the player to the HDMI In on the receiver? If I do that I do not need to run the optical as well do I? And should I do that for my DVD player and PVR as well?

What setting should I select on the receiver?

Sorry if these seem to be dumb questions but I am a little confused.

If your receiver supports HDMI, then by all means use it.
HDMI will pass all your video and your audio. The audio will stop in the receiver (where you will be able to get at least 5.1 from PCM) while the video will be passthrough to the TV.

And no need for any other connections!

Thank You

Well I changed the HDMI, ran it from the Blue Ray to the receiver and then out to the TV, it worked only PCM but its better than it was

Thanks again, I really do appreciate the help and advice.

Graeme, it isn't "only" PCM; pulse-code modulation is the standard digital encoding format for audio, and newer formats(e.g., Dolby True HD)have to be decoded into PCM for further processing and then conversion to analog for amplification. Since your player decodes the Blu-ray audio formats into PCM, your 661 doesn't need to have that decoding capability and you get the full benefit of the True HD or whatever.