Are Some Blu-Ray Disc not in Tru Audio? Do You Always Need to Setup Audio on Discs?

[EdwardGein]

Would appreciate someone clarifying this for me: Are All Blu-Ray Discs in Tru Audio or not? It seems a lot of my Blu-Ray rentals lately just say 5.1/6.1 Audio not Tru Audio. Does this mean they are not in Tru Audio?

Also related to this, if a Disc is in Tru Audio or 5.1 sound, will it automatically if I don't go into the discs setup play in TruAudio or 5.1 sound whatever is the highest quality audio option or should I always click in the blu ray disc set up menu. I ask this because at times its a pain in the ass to use setup menus and I'd like to avoid if I can. Thanks for your answers.

[canuckle]

1) Like a DVD, there can be any number of audio formats on a blu-ray disc. What type of audio is almost universally outlined on the back cover of the disc. It's certainly outlined in the audio setup menu. It absolutely will be noted by your player or receiver as it's getting played.

2) There's no such thing as "Tru Audio." There's Dobly Digital TrueHD, which is about the closest thing I can surmise that you're asking about?

[Mr Peabody]

I suspect that whether a Blu ray player will select best sound track is brand dependent, my old Samsung did not but my Marantz does. What's odd is I don't remember ever setting or seeing an "auto" setting for format, it just seems like something Marantz does. After a few times checking the sound track and seeing my unit was already set I learned to just trust it. As Canuckle mentioned your BDP or receiver should display your surround mode, so if it's Tru-HD or DTS-MA you are good to go. If you are going into a receiver with HDMI, your receiver should have an "auto" mode where the best sound track will be selected. If not using a receiver why worry about the sound at all? If using an older receiver without HDMI, unless using a multichannel analog connection, you won't receive HD audio any way.

If using an analog output from BDP you should have the BDP set to PCM internally, if using HDMI or other digital set the BDP to a digital output. Brands also seem to vary on what they call these outputs or how they set them up so best to consult the manual. My Samsung was pretty simple, it said "PCM" or HDMI, my Marantz has a bit different grouping or label but the manual clued me in.

So give us some more detail, what is your player connected to, what type of connection, brand, etc. When you do go in to set the sound do you find more often than not you make a change?

[pixelthis]

I suspect that whether a Blu ray player will select best sound track is brand dependent, my old Samsung did not but my Marantz does. What's odd is I don't remember ever setting or seeing an "auto" setting for format, it just seems like something Marantz does. After a few times checking the sound track and seeing my unit was already set I learned to just trust it. As Canuckle mentioned your BDP or receiver should display your surround mode, so if it's Tru-HD or DTS-MA you are good to go. If you are going into a receiver with HDMI, your receiver should have an "auto" mode where the best sound track will be selected. If not using a receiver why worry about the sound at all? If using an older receiver without HDMI, unless using a multichannel analog connection, you won't receive HD audio any way.

If using an analog output from BDP you should have the BDP set to PCM internally, if using HDMI or other digital set the BDP to a digital output. Brands also seem to vary on what they call these outputs or how they set them up so best to consult the manual. My Samsung was pretty simple, it said "PCM" or HDMI, my Marantz has a bit different grouping or label but the manual clued me in.

So give us some more detail, what is your player connected to, what type of connection, brand, etc. When you do go in to set the sound do you find more often than not you make a change?

BACK when I first started with BLU, a lot of players had "auto" as a menu choice,
now it seems they just default to "auto", and you can change whatever the player chooses from the onscreen menu, at least thats the way my Sharp works, and its probably better for less informed souls, idiot proof, in other words.
OP sounds like hes' trying to get HD audio through something other than an HDMI
cable, or maybe the line out on older players, and these are the only two ways to get HD AUDIO from a BLU player.

[Mr Peabody]

Hey, I like my auto feature, it's nice to just drop a movie in and not have to worry about going to the set up menu.

This is not meant to confuse the issue further but what I hate is some of the music DVD's some how change my machine to PCM and I have to go into the menu of the player and reset it. The reason it's a pain I usually don't notice until after the movie has started. Hazzards of the comfort zone

[winston]

This is not meant to confuse the issue further but what I hate is some of the music DVD's some how change my machine to PCM and I have to go into the menu of the player and reset it. The reason it's a pain I usually don't notice until after the movie has started. Hazzards of the comfort zone

"Don't you know it"... these players almost always starts the music DVDs in PCM mode,

[recoveryone]

Without knowing the setup or equipment being use, we are shooting shots in the dark. Now with that said we all can agree that most if not all BR players have a setting in the menu for PCM or Bitstream decoders (for lack of better terms) Now if your AVR supports Tru HD or DTS HD the you could set it to bitstream and let the auto setting on your AVR do the work. If your AVR does not support the Tru HD or DTS HD then it is suggested that you use the PCM setting and let the player do the decoding.

But until Ed tells us his setup then all suggestion's should be held

[pixelthis]

Hey, I like my auto feature, it's nice to just drop a movie in and not have to worry about going to the set up menu.

This is not meant to confuse the issue further but what I hate is some of the music DVD's some how change my machine to PCM and I have to go into the menu of the player and reset it. The reason it's a pain I usually don't notice until after the movie has started. Hazzards of the comfort zone

What, you're DAC can't handle 192 khz PCM?
This is the best for playing audio, IMHO, and sounds nothing short of amazing.

[jvc]

It's the disc that determines what soundtrack automatically plays. My receiver is set to auto (factory default), and most discs, Dolby TrueHD or dtsHD Master Audio will automatically play. Of course, not until the movie actually starts. There have been a couple of movies that defaulted to the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, even though there was an HD audio soundtrack on it. On those, I had to manually choose the HD audio sountrack.

[Invader3k]

I've had similar experiences to jvc. I have some discs that will default to the highest quality format, but some will default to Dolby 5.1. I always check the menu before playing the movie to be on the safe side.