Got PS3. Have an Onkyo 605 receiver that can do DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD. Which is the route to go? Let the PS3 process the sound and pass it along as pcm or bitstream it and let receiver process it? I don't see any real discernible different in terms of sound quality. From everything I've seen (which includes a long thread at AVS) there isn't really much of a difference other than losing some sound on screen sound effects w/ the PS3 if I go the pcm route.

There's no real difference. You hit the main one, that being the loss of secondary audio, such as menu sounds, or PiP commentary/special features when you select Bitstream and let your receiver do the decoding.

I got an advanced codec HDMI receiver when they first streeted. It was very important to me to see "DTS-HD MA" and "Dolby TrueHD" displayed on my receiver panel. Two years later, less so.

I think that's backwards. If you set the PS3 to decode internally and output multi-channel PCM it should be able to mix in the secondary audio. If you set the PS3 to send bitstream, it can't mix in the secondary audio.

Other than that functional difference, there's no advantage one way or the other, in my opinion.

i think you are right. i got them mixed up. my mistake. sounds like i'll just go the same way i was going before and let my receiver do the decoding. thanks guys.

Some players won't send DTS-HD-MA tracks in 7.1 through PCM- they're downmixed to 5.1, and possibly not at their full resolution either. If I play a Blu-Ray with a DTS track I set my player to bitstream, if it's anything else I set it to PCM.

fortunately i'm not running a 7.1 system. just a 5.1 so that wouldn't be a problem, but that's good info to know.