A few PS3 questions...

[Strongwolf]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

One that's White!

LOL!!!

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by danrok

"HDMI for high quality digital sound and picture" - This is a lie.

It does not "pick-up" the sound from its HDMI ports. The audio signal does nothing more than pass through the box, to the HDMI out. I was expecting to be able to use that.

That's interesting, given the box does delay the audio (68ms apparently) to try keep it in sync with the video. It's not a variable delay though, which would be more useful.

[danrok]

Yes, it does use the signal to do some kind of sync'ing with the video picture.

The wording on the feature list was misleading to me, and to quite a few other people - having read up on it.

They have changed the wording on more recent models.

I don't really understand why HDMI audio-in is only found on more expensive units. My fairly cheap PC monitor has two tinny speakers, but does pick-up the sound from the HDMI sockets. So, the chip used, or whatever, can't be so expensive?

[Aedan]

Yeah, I agree, it does seem odd. One observation - HDMI is designed to be point to point, so the receiver is either switching (IE, just connects the wires together) or repeating (IE, gets involved in the communication flow). Guess which one is cheaper? As HDMI uses a method for describing what the device at the other end is capable of (Think of something like DDC - it's actually E-EDID), which looks like it might well include a description of what audio is supported. Thus, if a display only supports 2 channel PCM audio, the receiver would have to manipulate the data to ensure that the source device knew it could actually send 7.1 data and have it interpreted correctly.

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by danrok

If your sound card has optical-in, you may be able to do that.

No good for me, because I need to switch the PC off when watching movies, otherwise too much fan noise.

I'm probably better off with having them separate...for now...":O}

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by danrok

If your sound card has optical-in, you may be able to do that.

A lot of sound cards can handle standard PCM (2 channel audio) via optical-in, but can't handle compressed multichannel (such as 5.1/6.1/7.1 Dolby Digital or DTS) as an input. A few cards can handle receiving compressed multichannel though.