Sony should have taken the steps to implement proper powerdown of unused components, or APS protocols when playing only a Blu-Ray movie. 170w vs 23w is just crazy. I'd assume that standalones have dedicated GPUs, but they also have the servo motors, memory, power supply issues that a PS3/ standalone PC has. It's hard to believe that my 65" DLP HD set consumes only 295w, when compared to PS3's 170w. My XA2 only consumes 46w, and that even when Toshiba says that IS a full "computer" system / booting OS, etc.

At the risk of sounding like an idiot...

If I spent several hundred dollars on a new receiver so I could hear Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA and it didn't confirm that it was receiving those signals from my PS3, I would have no way of knowing for sure that everythng was working right. As a matter of fact, I would assume the opposite because every receiver I've ever owned has confirmed what type of signal it was receiving. And if I hadn't read this thread, I never would have known that the PS3 doesn't make some receivers light up the words "Dolby True HD" and DTS HD MA." I've never heard the new HD formats. Would my ears tell me instantly that the receiver is pumping out HD audio? Is the difference between DVD surround sound and HD surround sound night and day?

You can still verify that lossless audio is being outputted by pressing "select" on the game pad
(should be a similar key on the bluetooth remote, don't have mine yet so can't tell which one exactly).

Warrior

Outputted, yes. But received? The reason I mention this is because when I used to watch Superman Returns on HD-DVD, I'd always select the Dolby True HD track even though I was running an optical cable from my Xbox 360 to a receiver that couldn't decode Dolby True HD. By selecting Dolby True HD on screen, I assumed the Xbox was sending that signal to my receiver and my receiver was dumbing it down to something it could handle. I don't know what it was outputting, but it sounded better than the 5.1 Dolby Digital track on the same disc.
Which brings me back to #6 on this list... without confirmation that a receiver is receiving a lossless track from the PS3, I personally wouldn't know if I were listening to DD, DTS, DD+, DTS HD, Dolby True HD or DTS HD MA. I don't trust my ears.

Technically, you couldn't be sure, but in that case, the receiver says PCM. If the PS3 says DTS-HD MA, I'd trust that it was decoding it properly.

You're right that this can be very confusing.

The same information regarding DTS HD MA (for example) that you would normally see on the receivers display is being shown on your tv screen,
after pressing the "select" button. So if you "trust" your receivers display you can also trust the output on the tv screen,
because right there it says "DTS HD MA". If you have that much faith in the information displayed on your receiver
there is no reason to doubt the information shown on your tv screen, outputted from the PS3, same thing...

Warrior

Well, he does have a point that the output may not match the display. For example, you could be watching a movie and listening through stereo TV speakers, but it's still going to say "5.1" on the onscreen display if a multichannel track is selected.

that really doesn't make sense, who would choose the "DTS HD MA" option if they only had 2 speakers or
(even worse) are listening through their tv? people who choose that option usually know what they are doing
and what they expect from that sound option.
If they only had 2 main speakers (from a possible 5.1 or 7.1 setup) and had chosen a lossless audio track
it would also not be very useful and they could not tell the difference from a plain stereo track.
so we have to be fair and compare under conditions that make sense: a working and matching (at least 5.1) surround environment.
nobody is buying 4 tires if they only have 2 wheels...

Warrior

In this case, running an optical cable from the Xbox to your receiver, the audio should have been downconverted by the player attachment to DD or DTS for tranmission to the receiver. The optical S/PDIF connection can't handle the bandwidth of lossless audio. It is possible that this would sound better than a standard DVD audio track because the bitrate is a bit higher. But many people will mistake audio that is louder for "better", so unless you carefully matched the volume with a sound meter, it isn't a fair test.

If you have your PS3 hooked up to your receiver using HDMI and you select a lossless track you should be getting true lossless audio. The PS3 will decode TrueHD and DTS-HD MA and transmit it as PCM to an HDMI capable receiver. The reason you don't see a "TrueHD" or "DTS-HD MA" light on your receiver is because you would need to bitstream the unprocessed audio codecs to your receiver and the PS3 can't do that.

Nevertheless, it is generally better to have the player decode the tracks and send them as PCM to the receiver because the player can mix in secondary audio tracks, such as commentaries and menu sounds, so that they can be heard. When you bitstream the audio to the receiver you only get the main movie track.

I'm talking about how the 5.1 track (lossy or lossless) is the default and maybe even the only English track on the disc. Many discs don't have a stereo track. In that case, someone watching a movie would see "Dolby Digital 5.1" (or DTS 5.1 in the case of discs with DTS-HD MA) on the PS3's display, even though he is actually not hearing multichannel surround sound.

I was just giving an example where the display doesn't match what the listener is hearing.

The power consumption argument is a good one in my opinion. The environment should be of everyone's concern. And the argument some made that you already have a huge power consuming TV and therefore the PS3 doesn't make a difference anymore is a bad one -- every bit helps (besides, my Sony RPTV has an energy star).

Betcha those of you saying that it's not a big deal also take their cars to their mailbox down the driveway.

I thought I was the only one who did that! I also found its quicker to leave my Hummer idling in the driveway at all time, so I don't need to wait for the A/C to warm up if I need to get the mail or bring my empty bottles and cans to the dumpster.

My "is the power on" comment: did you download the latest PS3 firmware?

Yes, I did (for future use). I don't currently have a receiver that can handle the new HD lossless audio.

My current receiver doesn't have HDMI. I use an optical cable. As far as "louder being better"... What am I hearing if I select a lossless track using an optical cable? I know I wouldn't be hearing true lossless audio, but is it supposed to be better than 5.1 DD or DTS? I'm wondering because I switched back and forth from DD to the lossless track on "The Haunted Mansion" BD as a test. Pressing the select button on the PS3 controller confirmed that the bitrate was higher on the lossless track, but my ears told me the DD track was louder and had way more bass during action scenes. When I listened to the lossless track, I heard very little bass.

Well, The Haunted Mansion is an early Disney title, right? I don't have the disc, but I'm pretty sure it would have PCM as its lossless track. In that case, you are hearing 2-channel stereo downmixed from PCM. If you're getting sound from all speakers, it must be because your receiver is processing the sound.

Perhaps the lack of bass is because the LFE track isn't included in the downmix? I don't know if that's true for PCM (and it may even depend on the player), but I know that Dolby Digital downmixes discard the .1 channel.

If your ps3 will not power on and you left a dvd or br disc in there, you can't remove it.

Sony doesn't care about your electric bill. They built it to work. As long as it doesn't fry itself (or heat up the whole room) like 360s, I don't care how much power it uses.

Sony should concern themselves with getting The Shield released in Blu now that they own the rights. And where the hell is season 6!?