Audio Format with Vizio Soundbar (1 Viewer)

[Wes K]

When im watching a movie, and the only audio options are dolby 5.1 and pcm, which should i use if im outputting in bitstream with a coaxial cable to my soundbar?

My sound bar (vizio 38" 2015 model) is only capable of playing back Dolby and DTS, but surely PCM and other lossless formats have more "features" and surround effects that can be down converted.

I realize that coaxial can only carry dolby and dts at 5.1, but im more worried about the surround effects than the fidelity or discretness, so im hoping that pcm can be down converted and keep its surround effects at a lower quality.

 

[Salacious Ackbar]

I have a similar soundbar in the living room and I just set the BD player to output PCM and choose the lossless option on Blu-ray's when available. No reason not to.

 

[Wes K]

I have a similar soundbar in the living room and I just set the BD player to output PCM and choose the lossless option on Blu-ray's when available. No reason not to.

Do you connect your bluray to the soundbar via hdmi? Because my soundbar doesnt have that option. I cant use the lossless mixes without hdmi

 

[Salacious Ackbar]

Do you connect your bluray to the soundbar via hdmi? Because my soundbar doesnt have that option. I cant use the lossless mixes without hdmi

No, I use digital coaxial. You won't get lossless out of a soundbar unless it has HDMI. You'll only get lossy, which to be fair, for a soundbar, is more than adequate.

 

[Wes K]

No, I use digital coaxial. You won't get lossless out of a soundbar unless it has HDMI. You'll only get lossy, which to be fair, for a soundbar, is more than adequate.

Dont you only get 2.1 pcm over digital coaxial?

 

[schan1269]

Do you want the Vizio to decode?

Set the player bitstream.

Do you want the player to decode?

Set the player PCM.

Same answer since AC3 debuted in 1995.

 

[Salacious Ackbar]

Dont you only get 2.1 pcm over digital coaxial?

Digital coaxial and optical support lossy discrete multichannel audio. The receiver or soundbar, in this instance, will receive whatever the signal the player is sending, whether it be 2.0 or 5.1 or 7.1, and output it how it's intended to work. This case, all five channels of a 5.1 track will be sent to the soundbar and it will disperse the sound as best it can. Obviously, it won't be sending it to five different speakers so that kind of discreteness will not be there, but all of the audio will be present.

 

[Wes K]

Digital coaxial and optical support lossy discrete multichannel audio. The receiver or soundbar, in this instance, will receive whatever the signal the player is sending, whether it be 2.0 or 5.1 or 7.1, and output it how it's intended to work. This case, all five channels of a 5.1 track will be sent to the soundbar and it will disperse the sound as best it can. Obviously, it won't be sending it to five different speakers so that kind of discreteness will not be there, but all of the audio will be present.

From prior research ive done, what i understand i that PCM is too large to transfer 6 channels of audio on coaxial. So if my bluray is set to output bitstream, i should choose the LPCM track from the movie, and it will send the PCM compressed and the soundbar will decode it?

Sorry to be so annoying but theres just some conflict from your responses and other research ive done, i just wanna make sure.

 

[Salacious Ackbar]

From prior research ive done, what i understand i that PCM is too large to transfer 6 channels of audio on coaxial. So if my bluray is set to output bitstream, i should choose the LPCM track from the movie, and it will send the PCM compressed and the soundbar will decode it?

Sorry to be so annoying but theres just some conflict from your responses and other research ive done, i just wanna make sure.

Yes. You can't send six channel uncompressed PCM through coaxial or optical. It will downconvert to 2 channel, but all of the information will be there. It's not like you're losing any audio, it's just downmixed to 2 channel instead of spread across six. I think it's just easier to let the player do the decoding and send it to the soundbar, but either way is fine.