Blu Ray dmp-bd55

[sneeze]

I am a little confuse as to the setting in the audio setup

my receiver is harman/kardon 330 with no hdmi. I have a 7.1 speaker set up. blu ray dmp-bd55

which option do i choose in the Audio Set-up Menu. The choice is "bitstream" or "PCM"? And for "BD Secondary Audio" output to "Off/on."?

And can you tell me what is going on when i choose either?

[MrBoylan]

I am a little confuse as to the setting in the audio setup

my receiver is harman/kardon 330 with no hdmi. I have a 7.1 speaker set up. blu ray dmp-bd55

which option do i choose in the Audio Set-up Menu. The choice is "bitstream" or "PCM"? And for "BD Secondary Audio" output to "Off/on."?

And can you tell me what is going on when i choose either?

First of all, gezundheidt! Second of all, you're going to want to use the 7.1-channel analog outputs (since you do not have HDMI), and this means that the "Digital Audio Output" settings are not relevant. You could use the optical or coax digital output but this will not give you the full quality output from Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD or multi-channel PCM soundtracks so you're better off (sound quality wise) with the analog outputs.

So with a 7.1-channel analog connection, go into "Device Connection," make sure 7.1-ch is selected for your analog output and then hit enter a couple of times on that menu setting to get into the speaker configuration menu. This is where you can adjust your speaker size, levels and delay times.

Using the analog output of any BD player, the LFE channel will probably be reduced by about 10 dB so you may need to get into your receiver's set-up menu to apply a boost to the LFE channel for the analog inputs.

Hope that helps.

-Chris

[sneeze]

So am i missing out on anything using 7.1-channel analog outputs? What is the benefit of "Digital Audio Output" settings?

[MrBoylan]

So am i missing out on anything using 7.1-channel analog outputs? What is the benefit of "Digital Audio Output" settings?

The digital audio output settings are only for the digital audio outputs. If you had a receiver with HDMI 1.1 or 1.2 audio support, then you could set the digital audio outputs to PCM for the player to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio to multi-channel PCM. If you had a receiver with HDMI 1.3 support and on-board decoders of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, then you could set the digital audio outputs to "bitstream" and this would pass the raw digital signal to the receiver to decode.

But your receiver doesn't have HDMI so the only way you can properly decode the high bit rate audio formats (PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio) is by letting the player decode these to analog and using 8 RCA cables to connect the player to your receiver's analog inputs.

If you want a simpler connection, you can use the fiberoptic or coax digital connections, but in this case the high quality DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD soundtracks will be compressed to regular Dolby Digital and DTS and you will lose sound quality. Also, connected this way, multi-channel L-PCM tracks on certain Blu-ray titles will only come through as 2-channel PCM sound.

So, if you're happy with your current receiver, then the best sound quality option is to use the analog multi-channel outputs of the BD55. If you are ready to upgrade your receiver then you could get a newer model with HDMI 1.3 support and high bit rate audio decoders and you could simplify the connection using a single HDMI cable instead of the 8 analog cables.

Regards,

-Chris

[fodalo]

Hello Chris
Thanks for the help on Sneezes question that helped me as well I have the B&K ref 50 with analog 5.1 so I will do the same as the sneeze hooking it up thru Analog for Blu Ray
With that settled, will cd audio also go thru the 5.1 analog in my case, or will I go thru coax and or optical in order to get best results for plain ole cd audio? And the Same with standard DVD will I have to hook up optical or Coax for best results?
Will I be messing things up by hooking up these ports simultaniously?

2) Als, have you heard of SACD and or DVD -A being played thru the Blue Ray players? Folks at B&K stated that they have 3-4 players of present that will.
Thanks these posts are very helpful because the manuels can be confusing.

[MrBoylan]

Hello Chris
Thanks for the help on Sneezes question that helped me as well I have the B&K ref 50 with analog 5.1 so I will do the same as the sneeze hooking it up thru Analog for Blu Ray
With that settled, will cd audio also go thru the 5.1 analog in my case, or will I go thru coax and or optical in order to get best results for plain ole cd audio? And the Same with standard DVD will I have to hook up optical or Coax for best results?
Will I be messing things up by hooking up these ports simultaniously?

2) Als, have you heard of SACD and or DVD -A being played thru the Blue Ray players? Folks at B&K stated that they have 3-4 players of present that will.
Thanks these posts are very helpful because the manuels can be confusing.

Hi, there,

You could certainly use the analog outputs for CD and regular DVD but I'm thinking the B&K may possibly have better DACs than the ones in the Panasonic player as it's a pretty high-end receiver. Also, some receivers are a bit limited in how they can process (or bass manage) the multi channel analog inputs. The BD55 does cover the basics here with adjustment of the channel levels, delay and crossover (fixed at 100 Hz), but your B&K may have more precise adjustments available for its digital inputs.

My recommendation would be to hook up the BD55's analog multi-channel *and* fiber-optic or coax digital outputs to the receiver and see which you prefer for each format (CD, DVD, Blu-ray). For Blu-ray, you'll probably prefer the analog outputs over the digital as you'll be getting the full dynamic range and separation of the high bit rates audio formats (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD and Multi-channel L-PCM). But for CD and DVD, you may prefer the B&K's decoding and surround processing. I assume you're hooking up the player's HDMI output directly to your display, so you don't have to worry about assigning the multi-channel analog and digital inputs to the same input on your receiver. Just select the digital or multi-channel analog inputs depending on what you're watching or listening to.

As for a truly multi-format Blu-ray Disc player (Blu-ray, SACD and DVD-Audio), I don't think one exists yet. Sony's PS3 does play back SACDs but it lacks a multi-channel analog output, so it's not for you (at least, not with your current receiver). I believe Oppo will be releasing a multi-format BD Player soon (the BDP-83), and I suspect Denon/Marantz and perhaps Pioneer will offer one if there is enough of a perceived market for it. But at this point, the market for DVD-Audio and SACD is dropping off, as are the releases of new titles. So I don't think that the addition of SACD and DVD-Audio playback to Blu-ray Disc players is something that will be very widespread.

Oppo already makes a few models of DVD player that offer SACD and DVD-Audio playback including the DV-981HD, which I reviewed favorably a while back. I expect their BD universal player will be very popular among the audiophile/videophile crew when it does arrive.

Hope that helps.

-Chris

[sneeze]

This is great info, thanks alot, really did help me alot

[fodalo]

Thanks Chris for the response.
Because my run from the rack to the Pioneer Kuro about 40feet after its all said and done, I will be using Component still. Payed big bucks for the 40ft run and until I upgrade the B&K with new HDMI hook ups, I'll be continuing.
So can you start again on the digital portion when you thought HDMI was running to the display?
Again, I will use the 5.1 analog in (only one) on the B&K for the Panny BR. With that said, will I be able to listen to my present Marantz SACD/DVD-A thru the optical or coax since the 5.1 analogs will be taken up by the Panny?
I would not like to obsolete my sacd/dvd-a software for lack of analog hook ups.
Regards and thank you for your time.

[MrBoylan]

Thanks Chris for the response.
Because my run from the rack to the Pioneer Kuro about 40feet after its all said and done, I will be using Component still. Payed big bucks for the 40ft run and until I upgrade the B&K with new HDMI hook ups, I'll be continuing.
So can you start again on the digital portion when you thought HDMI was running to the display?
Again, I will use the 5.1 analog in (only one) on the B&K for the Panny BR. With that said, will I be able to listen to my present Marantz SACD/DVD-A thru the optical or coax since the 5.1 analogs will be taken up by the Panny?
I would not like to obsolete my sacd/dvd-a software for lack of analog hook ups.
Regards and thank you for your time.

Ack! Component video to the Kuro? That means you're going to be interlacing all those nice 1080p/24 movies to 1080i/60 on the BD55 and then forcing the Pioneer Kuro plasma to de-interlace and piece it back together as 1080p/24. Component output on all BD players is currently limited to 1080i and it's analog so it is subject to some loss of resolution particularly over great distances.

You'd be better off with a high quality long HDMI cable or even an active solution that will boost the HDMI signal to travel the full 40 feet to the display. I'm using a 33-foot HDMI (10 meter) cable to my projector currently, with no problems. It's around $65 on Amazon. Here's the link.

Not sure if that would quite make it for you, but with a good quality HDMI cable, you can travel up to about 45-50 feet before you start to have problems. This way you can maintain the video signal in the digital domain at 1080p/24 resolution all the way from the disc to the display and take advantage of the 4:4:4 video processing in the BD55 (the benefits of which you will probably lose over component video).

As to which player gets to use the single 5.1-channel analog input on the B&K receiver, that's going to be your call. I personally would probably give preference to the Marantz SACD/DVD-A Player for the analog inputs. The way Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio work is that they have a lossy "core" component (DTS) or a Dolby Digital "companion" track (Dolby) that gets delivered over the optical and coax S/PDIF outputs on the BD55 when playing back DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD. And while these are not lossless, they are higher bandwidth than you can currently get on DVD. DVD is limited to 448 KBPS for Dolby Digital and 768KBPS for DTS. On Blu-ray, you'll get 640 KBPS on Dolby Digital and 1500 KBPS for DTS.

But this doesn't solve your problem for multi-channel PCM soundtracks on Blu-ray Disc, of which there are quite a few. The only way to send these out from the player as discrete multi-channel are via the analog outputs or HDMI.

Another option would be to consider getting a multi-channel analog switch so that both the BD55 and the Marantz SACD player could share the same 5.1-channel analog input. A cheap way to do this is with a component video switcher, but it must have both analog stereo audio and coax digital inputs so it has 6 RCA jacks per source. Zektor also makes some high quality multi-channel analog switches. You can read more about these options in this thread: Switch for 5.1 Audio.

Of course, you could also just put the B&K up on eBay and buy a new receiver from Pioneer, Denon, Sony ES, Integra, Onkyo or Parasound (the latter coming in January I think) which DO offer HDMI audio processing. This would certainly make life simpler from a cabling perspective if not from a budgeting perspective.

Or wait for the Oppo BDP-83 which promises to include everything (DVD, SACD, DVD-A, Blu-ray, CD) in one box with mutli-channel analog and hdmi outputs.

Hope that helps.

-Chris

[fodalo]

Looks like its a sit and wait. When it all shakes out we will look again.
Thanks Chris appreciate your sharing your gift of Hi fi
Regards