RCA 2350/Samsung p3600

[idocdan]

I think you can help. I have an old rca rt2350 and a new samsung p3600 blu
ray (which is working flawlessly with my ATT gateway/wireless router--go
figure). I am trying to get the best audio, and since I don't have 6 channel
analog to the rt2350, I am stuck with optical. The only way I get reliable
sound is with the p3600 set to PCM output. Do you have suggestions? BTW the
TV is Vizio vp50 using HDMI from the p3600, and I tried optical from the tv
to the rt2350 without any better success, altho I didn't try 6 channel
analog to the tv and optical back to the reciever???
Thanks!!

[MrBoylan]

I think you can help. I have an old rca rt2350 and a new samsung p3600 blu
ray (which is working flawlessly with my ATT gateway/wireless router--go
figure). I am trying to get the best audio, and since I don't have 6 channel
analog to the rt2350, I am stuck with optical. The only way I get reliable
sound is with the p3600 set to PCM output. Do you have suggestions? BTW the
TV is Vizio vp50 using HDMI from the p3600, and I tried optical from the tv
to the rt2350 without any better success, altho I didn't try 6 channel
analog to the tv and optical back to the reciever???
Thanks!!

Hi,

The RCA RT2350 receiver supports only Dolby Digital and PCM input via its coax or fiberoptic digital inputs. It does not support DTS (you'll get no sound). Also, as it is an older piece, it is possible that the on-board Dolby Digital decoder does not support the higher bandwidth 640 KBPS Dolby Digital streams on Blu-ray Disc (DVDs were capped at 448 KBPS for Solby Digital). So the "bitstream (audiophile)" and "bitstream (re-encode)" output options on the BD-P3600 are not going to be viable options for you.

Also, the RT2350 does not offer a multi-channel analog input so the fact that the Samsung BD-P3600 has on-board decoding and a multi-channel analog output is also not helpful in this system. BTW, your TV also would not have a multi-channel analog input so that's not an option.

Unfortunately setting the output of the BD-P3600 to PCM is going to be your best bet, but this is only going to give you 2-channel (stereo) digital output over the fiberoptic or coax digital outputs, not discrete 5.1 or 7.1-channel surround sound. If you set the "Downmixing mode" to "Surround Compatible" then you will get a matrixed center and rear channel in the mix. This will give you a surround effect if you put your RCA home theater system into Dolby Pro Logic mode at playback time, but it's not as immersive or realistic as discrete 5.1 channel surround.

I have to say your best bet is probably to get a new home theater system, preferably one that support HDMI audio and which decodes the newest surround sound formats (DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD). This is the only way you'll be able to really take advantage of all the sound quality that Blu-ray has to offer.

Good luck!

-Chris

[idocdan]

Thanks much for your input. It is kind of what I was expecting, but since my old dvd player's "surround" sound seemed better than the blu ray's I was hoping I overlooked something. Oh, well--upward and onward!
Thanks again