PCM or bitstream?

If I set my Samsung blu ray player or firebox to pcm, I get audio. If I set to bitstream...no audio. Shouldn't I set my units to send a signal bitstream so my 976 does the audio conversions/encoding? What am I missing here? Settings on bitstream work on Pandora from the Samsung.
thanks
Brett

My first thought is to ask how you are routing your HDMI connections? Ideally each source device is an input directly into the Outlaw. If you are doing video source switching on your TV then it might not be able to pass a received bitstream through ARC to the Outlaw. Usually in this case you at least get Stereo audio on the receiver but a setting or 2 on the TV might interfere or the tv can't decode the bitstream.

Everything runs to the outlaw from the source. None from the TV, just use it as a monitor.

Does your samsung blu-ray have analog outputs? I think most players with analog outs have have a setting that does not permit bistream of the mutlichannel track if the analog outputs are preferred. On my old Sony bluray it would send PCM stereo over HDMI if the analog output was prefered.

My only other idea is to troubleshoot for an HDMI handshake problem - disconnect everything from the outlaw except the bluray and tv and try. Disabling HDMI-CEC can sometimes change the behaviors for the better (at the cost of some convenience, possibly).