Kleegamefan
K. LEE GAIDEN
mrklaw said:yes. Both HDDVD and bluray do this. They actually require the player to do the decoding, so they can mix in director commentary etc.
So you don't need HDMI 1.3. Just normal HDMI 1.1 or greater, passing the decoded PCM down to your receiver.
Or analog 5.1 outputs into your receiver.
As for 'PS3 doesn't have analog outputs', well I don't think we've seen any pictures of the PS3 AV outs planned by Sony. Lets wait and see. I hope they do support that, as I have 5.1 inputs, but not HDMI on my receiver.
And the HDDVD add on for XBox 360 is supposed to support decoding of Dolby TrueHD 5.1, and the only reason to do that is if it can output it. So they'll need a new cable hopefully too.
According to this Japanse slide at a Dolby labs nextgen audio presentation last year, DTHD can be passed from player to the reciever via HDMI 1.3 and decoded on the reciever (if its equipped with a DTHD decoder) *or* decoded and output as uncompressed LPCM (over HDMI 1.1 or better would be my guess) or analog 5.1: