I'm trying to help my sister in another state via email setup her new Panasonic DMP-BDT210 blu-ray http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/support/Video/Blu-ray-Disc-Players/model.DMP-BDT210 to her older Panasonic SA-HE9 surround receiver http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/support/Audio/Home-Theater/Receivers/model.SA-HE9 and a Samsung PN-50B430P2D http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/PN50B430P2D

I've told her to hookup the 210 via HDMI directly to her Samsung Plasma and then she will have to use the optical output of 210 into her surround receiver optical input even though she won't get TrueHD. I told also her sometime she probably needs to update her receiver somtime in order to get HDMI and True HD.

I'm not exactly sure what to tell her about her audio settings on page 30 of the Panasonic 210 blu-ray but do these seem right:

Digital Audio Output - Set to PCM my thinking is her 210 might be better at decoding since her surround receiver is a few years old.

PCM Down Conversion - ?

Downmix - ?

7.1ch Audio Reformatting [BDT210] - ?

HDMI Audio Output - Should be set to off (page 32)

Is there any other settings that maybe aren't set to the correct defaults she might need?

That BDT-210 manual is dreadful!

Digital Audio Output: I would actually lean toward any setting other than PCM. Presumably they are offering choices of bitstream and PCM for both menu entries (DD/DD+/TrueHD, DTS/DTS-HD). With an optical output, you're not going to get a TrueHD or DTS-HD MA signal anyway - but you will get the core DD or DTS track (which is encoded at the highest possible bit rate for either format), and that's probably going to sound better than a PCM downmix. By the way, check out page 39. It confirms that the options here are "bitstream" and "PCM" - and the table there confirms that you'll still get DD/DTS via optical when using the bitstream setting.

PCM Down Conversion: I don't think it matters that much. A receiver from 2001 probably won't support higher than 48kHz PCM, so "On" is probably a safe bet.

Downmix: Doesn't matter when using bitstream output. If there's a setting to disable this, I'd use that. If the only options are "surround encoded" and "stereo" (the only two that are mentioned in the manual), I'd probably use "surround encoded."

7.1ch Audio Reformatting: Also doesn't matter when using bitstream output. This one really only matters when using HDMI audio with PCM output. "Off" is probably a reasonable choice.

HDMI Audio Output: I agree that "off" is appropriate.

Thanks very much Gonk I definitely struggling with the manual.

Understandably struggling - if they left many more details out (such as a list of all the available settings for a very important menu item), they could just print a single page that said "put a disc in it, and it will play."

Just a follow-up Gonk when my sister sets her BDT-210 to bitstream she doesn't get any sound but if it's set to PCM she has sound does this make sense?

Unless there's some other setting keeping bitstream from working sounds like she has no choice but use PCM I hope she's getting Dolby 5.1 not stereo.

Since she's using PCM do any of the other audio settings mentioned above change?

So she had a DVD in the player, had the output set to bitstream, and had no sound? That doesn't make any sense.

If she uses PCM she's getting stereo, which at best is derived from 5.1 with Pro Logic steering cues incorporated.

I sent her all your settings including using bitstream and she said she had no sound but it was during this same period she still didn't have the optical input set to Dvd (thought she did) but yes she had a Dvd in.

By the time she finally did get sound she was pretty frustrated and it was set to PCM but I told her she needed to go back and try bitstream again...not sure she did. She was happy to have sound so she was ready to quit messing with it.

So since you verified that she's only getting stereo I need to insist she try bitstream again.