Well, I finally got off the fence and bought a Sony Blu-Ray BDP-S300. I'm struggling with some Best Buy advice, I thought I would consult some real experts.

I want to get the benefit of the higher resolution audio standards Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. My salesperson at Best Buy said I could use an optical cable from the Blu-Ray to my Outlaw 990, but I thought I would need to use the analog connections. I already have analog connections from my Denon DVD player (which also plays SACD and DVD-Audio, and I figured I would need another set for TrueHD. Am I correct, or is Best Buy correct?

Best Buy's second recommendation was to run a video cable directly from the Blu-Ray to the TV instead of running it through the 990. Any comments on that notion -- good or bad?

Thanks for your help.

John

First, the S300 will not decode TrueHD or DTS-HD. The documentation is not clear on it, but there's some extensive discussion at AVS that has confirmed it. It is possible that a future firmware update would add TrueHD decoding, but it's unclear when that may happen. DTS-HD is not likely to be added to the S300 ever, if I had to guess. The S300 will work with multichannel PCM tracks, but the only way to get access to that is via the 5.1 analog output. The optical will provide a Dolby Digital or DTS track only. If a multichannel PCM track is selected, it will be encoded on the fly to DD, I think. TrueHD tracks will actually use a core track of standard DD, and DTS-HD tracks will actually use a core track of DTS.

As for running video straight from the Blu-ray to the TV, the Best Buy salesman probably didn't know about the 990's DVI switching. I'm using my DVI switching with both an OPPO upscaling DVD player and a Toshiba HD-DVD player and have also used it with an HD cable box on occasion - all have worked with no video degradation.

If you have only one HDMI video source, you might want to connect it straight to the TV for the following reason: you can have both the Denon and the Sony connected to the 7.1 Direct input through a switch like this one (it's technically for component video, but the six connections per input will work just fine for the six analog cables from your Denon and your Sony), have the Denon's video assigned to the 7.1 Direct (Component-DVD, for example), and have the Sony's HDMI run straight to the TV. You'll need to switch the TV's video input when watching the Sony, but it'll let you have both sources connected to the 7.1 Direct input.

Thanks, Gonk, but I'm still a bit confused.

I understand the TrueHD and DTS-HD are lossless codecs offering the best quality sound. Is this correct. I don't even know what PCM is, and if it is comparable.

Bottom line, am I giving up the best sound by using PCM through the analog connections?

If I use the analog connections for the Sony Blu-Ray, do I have to give them up for my Denon SACD player?

Thanks again. You are always very helpful.

TrueHD and DTS-HD are compression formats that are lossless. PCM is uncompressed - basically the same as CD, although with a higher sampling rate. PCM should be at least equal to TrueHD and DTS-HD - in fact, those formats aspire to equal it, in a way. Unfortunately, PCM is far from standard on Blu-ray releases (TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio exist because PCM's uncompressed nature is so space-consuming). If you use the analog outputs and play back a PCM source, you will get that PCM source - you give up nothing.

If you use the analog connections for the Blu-ray, you have to either give up the analog connections for the Denon or resort to a separate switch like the one I mentioned in the last paragraph of my previous post. Personally, I'm waiting for both formats and the associated interfaces to mature a little more before I dip my toe in those waters. My 7.1 Direct input remains the sole domain of my OPPO 981HD (for DVD-A and SACD). I did get an HD-DVD player recently, but am settling for Dolby Digital Plus and TrueHD encoded as high bitrate DTS via optical - which is actually quite nice, even if not as good as multichannel analog or HDMI digital would be.