new codecs old reciever

[ratso]

so based on some helpful advice from here i got a nice price on a used marantz SR5002 AVR. i am kinda (okay not so kinda) a newbie at HT so a quick question for you guys/gals. marantz website gave me half my answer:

Question
Will I be able to get Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, dts-HD Master Audio or any of the "High Def audio formats" using my older Marantz Receiver?


Answer
YES! you can get any sound format out of any Marantz surround receiver we ever made. If your receiver does not have the HDMI v1.3 repeating function don't worry, all you need to do is connect from the 7.1 analog audio output of your Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player to the 7.1 EXT. IN on your receiver and you will be able to listen to any format the player can output.

my question is, why won't this work with HDMI instead of 7.1? my playstation 3 slim and my oppo DV980H will both pass LPCM over hdmi i do believe, so can i not use them and this will work? thanx, mike

 

[Adam]

Hi, Mike. Yes, you should be able to get those using multi-channel PCM. The manual indicates that you can, but I can't tell for sure if you can get the original 7.1 mix - you might only be able to do 5.1 without using internal processing.

My friend has a 7001 (maybe 7002), and he can do it over HDMI using PCM just fine.

 

[ratso]

thanx! okay so then that causes me to wonder - if your playstation 3 or oppo already does all the decoding, you really don't need a very modern AVR do you? i guess not everyone has a new blu-ray/DVD/playstation3. and i guess if a format comes out like IIz that needs a seperate channel you might want to upgrade.

 

[Adam]

Well, you would need a receiver that has the necessary input(s) and the ability to utilize the signals coming from the source to your satisfaction. If you've got those, then you're set.

I recently upgraded my receiver because (a) my other one didn't have any HDMI inputs and (b) the multi-channel analog inputs didn't use any of the internal processing, such as the equalizer and bass management. The digital audio inputs (optical and coax) worked great for movies, but I was looking to get into SACD and DVD-Audio.