Many had suspected (or at least hoped) so—and it’s something we’ve not yet confirmed—but a report on the Japanese Tech News site, AV Watch, makes it sound like a done deal.
The HDMI chip used by existing fatty PS3 models doesn’t support the relatively recent Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA codecs. This currently forces the consoles to decode internally and send the audio to your receiver via LPCM, a potentially lossy process.
Bottom Line: Great news if you use the PS3 for watching Blu-ray movies with a high-end surround sound system. If not, just nod and know that this is a good thing. [AV Watch (translated) via Engadget]
Sam
August 22, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Please explain what you mean by “potentially lossy process” this makes no sense to me? If you think of it like a compressed file, un-compressing it on the playstation before sending it to you receiver doesnt reduce the quality of the file? Its still the same file. I see no benefit here except for the fools who payed stupid amounts for receivers that can handle these codecs and see a little blue light come on to tell them they didnt waste there money.
Report Permalinkmatt
August 24, 2009 at 10:22 AM
you have no idea what is happening to the audio in the PS3 between getting decoded, and being sent through the hdmi cable as LPCM. it could be adding processes,(like software volume control ect) and also blending the menu sounds, which does equate to a lossy sound, as its not exactly the same. however I do think the ps3 is pretty good, it keeps the sample res and rate the same (something it doesn’t do when playing audio files :( ) and is quite possibly a bit perfect match when just playing the movie, but some receivers have extra features that they can only apply to the dtsMA or DDTHD streams and not to the pre decoded LPCM (night mode for one example).
however I’ll be the first to admit that when I got my bit stream audio ready receiver it was cause I thought that the cheaper players would only bitstream and not decode (where as its the other way round with the ps3 :( )
I can also tell you that this added feature isn’t enough for me to even consider going threw the fuss of selling my current ps3 and getting a new one.
Report PermalinkAndrewCraick
August 25, 2009 at 8:27 AM
Are you saying that with a decent surround AMP (i.e. denon 1610) that you can’t use Night mode with a HDMI or optical signal from the PS3 because they cripple the signal ?
I was just about to buy an amp exactly for this feature and by the sounds it wont work. WTF?
Report Permalink