# '300' on Blu Ray sound and setup issues



## jugernautmitch (Aug 11, 2010)

Can anyone give me some insight regarding the sound on the Blu Ray version of '300'? It will only put out 5.1 on my system for some reason. The Blu Ray version of 'The Bourne Supremacy' (DTS-HD) plays full 7.1 and I have older DVD's with DTS-ES that put out 6.1. The only 2 things that seem to differ with the '300' disc is it is (unfortunately) the only disc I currently own that is in Dolby HD and the second thing is the disc doesn't have a 'set up' screen where you can select the sound setting that you want. You put the movie in and it plays and that's it. If you hit the menu button, all I get is a list of 'extra content'. There is no set up for sound, subtitles etc. what so ever. Is my disc defective or is the movie only in 5.1 and thats the end of it? Any help/comments/thoughts would be appreciated.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

jugernautmitch said:


> Can anyone give me some insight regarding the sound on the Blu Ray version of '300'? It will only put out 5.1 on my system for some reason.


On the Bluray players remote there will be an audio select button (push this and it should cycle through the options available). Generally BluRay movies that do not have the option of selecting the audio will default to Dolby 5.1 unless otherwise selected.
Does your receiver have the ability to expand the 5.1 channels to 7.1?


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## jugernautmitch (Aug 11, 2010)

Thanks for responding to my post. The audio button on the Blu Ray remote did the trick (sort of). I can select Dolby True HD using that button and when I do it displays it on the front of the receiver which is a step in the right direction. The only thing is it's still only putting out 5.1 (rears are silent). If that is the way the movie was recorded, then that's fine. I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing out on something. And I guess I should have started the whole thread saying what equipment I have.

Yamaha HTR-6190 receiver
Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu Ray player

The last note... (forgive my ignorance) but I'm not sure what you meant by 'Does your receiver have the ability to expand the 5.1 channels to 7.1?' I know my receiver can do full 7.1 but I'm not sure if it can 'fake' 7.1 from 5.1. And I'm not sure if that's what you were asking.

Read more: '300' on Blu Ray sound and setup issues - Home Theater Forum and Systems - HomeTheaterShack.com


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

jugernautmitch said:


> The last note... (forgive my ignorance) but I'm not sure what you meant by 'Does your receiver have the ability to expand the 5.1 channels to 7.1?' I know my receiver can do full 7.1 but I'm not sure if it can 'fake' 7.1 from 5.1. And I'm not sure if that's what you were asking.


This will answer both your questions from above,
Movies generally dont have the full 7.1 audio soundtrack (there are only a handful that do) Most receivers including yours have surround modes that will expand the 5.1 to 7.1 channels. Using the mode PLIIx Movie will do this and still maintains the quality of the original uncompressed audio format of the BluRay.


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## jugernautmitch (Aug 11, 2010)

Seriously??? Thanks for the info. I've had this receiver for about 3 years now and I've basically stayed away from those settings because I figured anything that tried to 'stretch' more sound out of what was actually in the source would sound . Will it do the same thing for regular DVD's recorded in 5.1? This whole time I've been leaving my side speakers unplugged and plugged the rears into their spot unless I knew the movie I was going to watch was either 6.1 or 7.1. If I didn't do that, my Energy Reference RC-R's would just be decorative and that would be a waste.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

jugernautmitch said:


> Will it do the same thing for regular DVD's recorded in 5.1?


Yes, it will work for all audio formats even music.


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## jugernautmitch (Aug 11, 2010)

Ok great. Thanks for all your help.


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## nova (Apr 30, 2006)

While I don't know how 300 is encoded on the Blu-ray, I do know that if you set your receiver to Dolby PLIIx it will matrix a 5.1 track to 6.1 or 7.1 depending on how many speakers you have set the receiver to. And if you have your receiver's Audio Settings Extended Surround set to Auto (from your manual) it Activates the optimum decoder to play back signals in 6.1/7.1 channels when this unit recognizes a signal flag being input.


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## jugernautmitch (Aug 11, 2010)

Thanks for your response. I've actually set it to Neural-THX 7.1 and now it works quite nicely. Although I've had this receiver for about 3 years now, I've only had the full 7.1 speaker setup for a couple of months so I always ignored those settings since they apply to me. But now I know I can use this with all my non-7.1 movies instead of moving around the speaker connection in the back of the receiver. I'm a happy man once again. (All this being said, I'm still surprised '300' is only encoded in 5.1)


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

jugernautmitch said:


> (All this being said, I'm still surprised '300' is only encoded in 5.1)


I am only aware of about 6 BluRay movies that have the full 7.1 audio included.


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