I had the same dilemma last summer. I had a then 2.5 year old Onkyo 801 which was a great receiver, but no HDMI. I wound up buying the Onkyo 605 for $500 when it came out and was glad I upgraded. YMMV.

That's the lowest I've seen that receiver. However, the new model, 920, is supposed to arrive in May. It'll cost $399 and will be able to decode all the HD audio formats + offer up 4 HDMI connections. I'd wait for that.

I take credit for this update. Just yesterday I paid off my PS3 balance on my Sony Card ($150 off and no interest for a year). Coincidence? I don't think so

I know we still have some members who don't have much respect for the Insiders at blu-ray.com, but I wanted to point this out. Penton-Man hinted about the PS3 getting the DTS update a month in advance. Not the clearest of hints, but it shows the guy is well connected in the movie industry. Here was the quote from 3/16/08:

"I will tell you though that it is a certainty that the PS3 will get DTS HD MA.
Well, let me rephrase as the only certainties in life are death and taxes."

That's a pretty clever way of telling us 4/15, which of course, is also the deadline to file taxes.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.ph...postcount=1804

The Sony STR-DG2100 is going to be a pretty sweet receiver. Too bad it's going to be around 700+. I guess the 920 will do but I remember seeing the 910 going for 300 and under. They all do multichannel PCM that's what you would need for the DTS-MA.

Hehe - nice catch.

Well, I'm glad this is coming, and sooner than I had expected based on the rumors. Now, the only other big feature I want is upscaling of SD extras on BDs so I don't have to switch modes on the display.

BTW, I strongly recommend that anyone who is considering a receiver should carefully check out his options. Download the manuals and look through them. There are a lot of catches involved, and if you're not careful, you could end up with something you regret buying.

i am using the Onkyo 605 also. what would i need to do so that the Onkyo would display the word DTS-MA or Dolby TruHD?

Buy a different Blu-Ray player. You won't see that display unless your player is outputting the bitstream. Doesn't matter though, it will sound just as good!

he he he okay thank you :)

Wait, the 920 will be $399...where? The SonyStyle site lists it for $599 (which I know is probably MSRP).

Also what is the main difference between the 910vs920? I know the 920 will have DTS-HD / DTS-HD MA, but the PS3 will not utilize that since it is just using PCM, correct.

Also, I know my Sony reciever lights up BLUE when 5.1/DTS is playing....is that the same when PCM comes through over HDMI?

I just saw the 920 for about 357. I'm still deciding if I need it. I currently have the 910 and a PS3 so it should be perfectly fine. Hmmm....

Where?

I can show you but how do I attach screenshots?

1. Upload photo to a hosting service like Photobucket

2. Once you have uploaded the image, Photobucket will generate a url for it.

Paste it here as a link or use the "[img]Link[/img]" tags

Is it not from a website? It is not available until May 28th according to Sony.

They say I can pre-order it. Once they have it available they can ship it out. I can wait until they officially release it and then make my decision to buy it.

My bad. I meant the 820 will be $399.

Thanks for adding this. I knew there were some other plays that could do this. Not surprisingly, they are also high end players like the Pioneer.

I think the PS3 must be the first sub-$500 and probably even the first sub-$1000 to decode DTS-HD MA.

Makes sense that things will move back towards bitstreaming now that HDMI 1.3 is much more common.

[I deleted my post because I wanted to do some more fact checking, but since you quoted it, I won't repost it — everything checked out.]

I agree that the PS3 is the first sub-$500 player to decode DTS-HD-MA. And the Panny BD30 was the first Profile 1.1 player to bitstream both lossless codecs, from what I can tell.

The problem with the PS3, as you well know, is that it can't send the decoded lossless audio over analog, for those of us with older receivers. But for those with HDMI capable receivers, the ability to decode lossless and send it as PCM over HDMI should be good enough. (Which explains all the discussion about HT receivers above!)

My guess as to reason most coming players will have lossless bitstreaming is that it is much easier to implement than on-board decoding. And, as you say, HDMI 1.3 receivers with decoding are becoming more common, so bitstreaming will likely become the norm for lossless audio in the future.

I am beyond excited about this, as I have a stack of DTS-HD Blu-rays that I have been saving to watch until this blessed event ocurred. What does everyone recommend as the single BEST DTS-HD Blu-ray to break in my PS3 with?

I agree with this. I expect the bitstreaming to become the norm and the decoding to be rare.

I'm just glad the PS3 is the perfect player for those of us with older HDMI receivers so we don't miss out on lossless DTS or Dolby Digital for that matter.

Hairspray.

(Just kidding, though I will have to check that out. :))

I actually don't have any Fox day and date titles, but I think those would be the best ones to use. Something like Live Free or Die Hard, or one of the Fantastic Four movies would probably work well. I'll have to pick up I, Robot soon. Out of what I have now, Cast Away or Kingdom of Heaven would probably be best, followed by Speed, and the other Die Hard movies (though the original probably has limited fidelity relative to later movies).

Oh BTW, Die Hard 2 does not have DTS-HD MA. They screwed up the authoring somehow so the track can't be read, and there's a thread on AVS where some people are getting sent replacement discs. I'm going to wait until they get theirs and see if it's fixed before requesting a replacement.

Actually Hairspray has some of the cleanest audio I have experienced on any format. Sure, it doesn't have huge explosions and massive surround sound effects that get us all excited, but the disc is amazing none the less.

Just to let everyone know, the firmware is now available via the Internet. I'm currently downloading it.