Yamaha YHT7830HD and PS3/HD-A3?
 

At the end of last year and the beginning of this year I made the jump to HDTV, HD DVD (in the form of an HD-A3), and Blu-ray (in the form of the PS3).

Now I am thinking that it's time to complete the setup and get a surround system. However, I'm trying to keep the budget for this project low.

I'm looking at the Yamaha YHT7830HD receiver/speaker/sub-woofer package. My question is, since this unit has HDMI passthrough, will this work for my PS3 and HD-A3? I'm a bit unclear about this, as I've read posts before about pcm output, HDMI repeating, etc.

Thanks in advance!

You will not get lossless sound with this package and your current players. You will get regular Dolby Digital or DTS (lossy) sound over optical/SPIF or coax digital sound connections from the PS3 and A3. This sounds pretty good and depending on the price of this package, may be worth it.

Both the PS3 and A3 send multi-channel Linear PCM (LPCM) to the player over HDMI.

There's other Yamaha packages that would work with the PS3 and A3 (take LPCM audio in) -- YHTB6630 & YHTB4630.

-comix

Thanks for the info! Another thing I was wondering was whether this has wireless rear speaker functionality right out of the box. I was at Best Buy over the lunch hour and was surprised to see that almost every HTIB they had boaster wireless rear speakers right out of the box.

Yes, but on your budget, I see no advantage to lossless. In other words, I wouldn't worry about lossless if your getting "package" speakers. IMO you would be getting more bag for your buck by getting nicer speakers then getting a nicer receiver that can do the newer formats.

"Regular" surround (lossy, DTS) sounds pretty damn good. I have both a PS3 and A-3 like you. I feed their optical to my older HK unit that doesn't even have HDMI. One day I'll upgrade the receiver. But not until I can upgrade my speakers and sub FIRST!

I would skip the wirelss speakers. They never work well. And don't forget they are not wireless. Every one I have seen has power cables that much be plugged in. And I would think it would be a hell of a lot easier to hide a speaker wire then a power cord.