Hi, I'm thinking about buying a blu-ray player since I recently bought an HDTV. I get audio from the speakers on my TV, and I was wondering if I hook up the player with an HDMI cable if I would be able to use all types of audio.

Thanks.

In a word no.

A TV is not designed to handle multi channel audio. You need a receiver.

Ok, thanks.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "use all types of audio." If you just want to hear sound from the TV speakers, there won't be a problem. You just might need to set up the player so that it knows to send stereo audio over the HDMI cable instead of the lossless surround format that the TV probably wouldn't understand.

I assumed you weren't asking about surround formats because they obviously require more speakers and something to decode the audio.

I just meant if it would be able to convert types of audio so I would be able to hear it over my TV speakers instead of having a surround system.

You should be able to hear two-channel stereo for almost all movies, regardless of Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD Master, Dolby Digital 5.1, etc.

Exactly. The TV's will just downmix the sound to the best of its ability to stereo and throw it out of your TV. You won't have any problems. However, upgrading to Blu-ray and only using the speakers on your TV isn't ideal. Better picture quality is only half the reason to get into the latest format.

Totally agree. The stronger selling point of HD media is uncompressed audio IMO.

I know, I'm all for uncompressed audio, but it might be a while after I get my player before I have a sound system, so I was just wondering if the audio would downmix okay. Thanks everyone!

You will get great sounding stereo out of every BR movie, no problems at all. It will all travel over your HDMI connection with zero configuration. The BR player will handshake with the TV, the TV will tell the BR player, "I take 2 channel stereo sound." And the BR will send it along what it needs.

Later, when you get a lossless surround rig... it will be waiting for your to rediscover all those titles again with their lossless surround sound.