You guys are confusing, me I'm not sure what digital form Dolby D or DTS is in it's original form but for a fact you will get 5.1 or better via optical or coax. From what I understood the signal via optical or coax remains digital until it reaches your receiver's decoder.

Don't confuse bitstream with PCM. To get your 5.1 or better via Toslink your player must be set internally to "bitstream". If you select "PCM" you would only get 2 channel unless using multichannel analog and provided multichannel PCM track was encoded on the disc.

I would strongly urge you all to at least try the MC analog outs, I personally thought the overall improvement in sound was well worth any limit in bass management. Also, check you receiver's manual because I understand that some do allow adjustments to an analog input.

The Dolby and DTS websites are good sources to help weed through some of the different formats and connections.