If you want to connect a universal dvd player to a receiver via a digital connection, which one would work best for playing redbook cd's? optical/coax, hdmi, or firewire? I guess what I'm asking is sending a digital audio signal through the hdmi connection as good or better than sending it through the firewire connection?
Blazer: Try to use the Firewire if you can since most receivers that have a Firewire input have extensive bass mgt. capabilities. Sending the audio through the HDMI is not possible yet as the protocol for the digital audio signal transfer is still being hashed out between electronics manufacturers,the motion picture industry and tv networks. If you can't go with Firewire then use the digital coax which I believe is better than optical for several reasons, especially long runs. See the cables section of this forum.
Firewire is definitely the best for all audio connections. It is very fast with very wide (400 mhz min.) bandwidth. Of course, you'd have to have a receiver or preamp with firewire capabilities, along with a universal dvd player with firewire.
Coaxial digital is fine for stereo, but it will not pass dvd-a and multi-channel sacd.
One either should use firewire or standard analog connections with a universal dvd player. If one has an earlier iteration of HDMI than the 1.2a spec on both the receiver and the the universal player, it won't carry dvd-a and sacd. This should definitely be checked out before pourchasing an av receiver and a universal dvd player.
The above being said, I much prefer using firewire for all audio connections and the HDMI for sending all video. A couple of Denon and Pioneer Elite receivers and universal dvd players have firewire and HDMI. There are some others too.
Thanks everyone. I thought firewire was the way to go. I'm assuming that if you connect a universal dvd player to a receiver via firewire, than the receiver is doing the DA conversion and bass management for ALL audio sent including DVD-A, SACD, DD, DTS, and CD because firewire is a digital connection. Such that only ONE connection is needed for audio. Does anyone know the difference between firewire and Denon's Denon Link?
Denon-Link is a proprietary system that Denon uses. As long as you have a receiver and dvd player that are both Denon's and come with the 3rd generation of Denon-Link you can use that for all audio connections, but there is no advantage of it over firewire. If it isn't the latest Denon-Link (3rd generation) then you won't be able to pass SACD.
Gregory, Thank you for your responses. I was just looking at hdmi.com and my take away is that the latest hdmi versions support any digital signal except sacd which may be included in the future. So it looks like unless you want to play sacd, you can use the hdmi connection from a universal player to a receiver with only ONE cable in order to play cd, dvd-a, dd, and dts. Am I missing something here? Of course you still have to run a cable from the receiver to the tv
True, but if you have both firewire and HDMI I still prefer using the firewire for all audio connections and the HDMI for video. I have had too many compatibility problems with HDMI. It is often better to just let HDMI handle your video, since firewire is such a tried and true audio connection.
Blazer, the firewire also opens up a bunch of pc based functions, like I use sometimes with my Sony Viau laptop, if you might be interested. Not much quality added, butthe eq works pretty well.
Thanks Nuck. So the bass management feature in the universal player is not used at all (even for DVD-A) if the player is connected via fire wire or Denon Link?
