HDMI audio support in receivers

[John S]

After doing some research for a friend's new Sony 7.1 receiver with HDMI inputs, I find that a separate coax/optical connection is necessary for the receiver to process audio from his "upconverting" DVD player. He's quite perplexed because as he understand it, HDMI carries not only high quality video but also digital multichannel audio as well. This is certainly not a deal breaker, but what has happened to the HDMI promise of "one wire does it all" hype?

Is this true for all brands of HDMI supported receivers/pre-pros?

The next question is whether this is true of all new blue laser format players? Are multi-patch cord audio connections (a la SACD/DVD-Audio) going to be necessary in order to hear the hi-res Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD bitsreams in receivers of the future?

Thanks, and apologies if these questions have been covered on another thread here.

[kingkip]

It depends on what version of HDMI the gear uses. Earlier versions don't do the sound at all, as if things weren't confusing enough. The latest version is HDMI 1.3 and it will do all that HDMI promised, theoretically.

Hope that helps.

[Sonnie]

I'm using HDMI audio on my Toshiba A1 HD-DVD. I'm not real sure how it works... sometimes my receiver reads Dobly Digital and sometimes it reads Multi Channel In during movies.

[bobgpsr]

Sonnie wrote:

I'm using HDMI audio on my Toshiba A1 HD-DVD. I'm not real sure how it works... sometimes my receiver reads Dobly Digital and sometimes it reads Multi Channel In during movies.

It appears that it is working as it should. The Denon is decoding Dolby Digital (or DTS) for normal old SD DVDs and other times when playing a HD DVD with DD+ the Denon shows multichannel (showing that it is getting LPCM over the HDMI with the Toshiba player doing the decoding).

Bob

[elmac]

All this will depend on your receiver / processor and your HDMI source
For example:
My Pio 79avi will only send DVD Audio over HDMI
Sony is in the same boat they both did not follow the specs
My Oppo will do DVD Audio and SACD over HDMI
all the players are 1.1
My Toshiba A1 and SA 8300HD will both do Multichannel audio over HDMI
so all I need is one cable from each of those components
One thing to remember is to set your resolution of your source above 720P

HDMI 1.3 has been design for higher transfer rates to carry picture above 24 bits, which none of the current screens can not even handle and there will be no TV's/PJ's that can handle that for long time

1.2 format is for SACD and DVD Audio
Oppo already proved that you don't need 1.2 to handle SACD, so for now all you need is 1.1 (or oppo DVD player )
Hope this helps

[blueenergy]

I have not tried one of the new HDMI receivers yet. But I have used HDMI to connect my Sony KDS-50A2000 display with SA 8300HD and a Sony upscaling DVD player with no issues. No need for seperate audio cables and all devices are HDMI 1.1.