Can I connect my PS3 to this surround sound system?

How to connect PS3 to surround system for 5.1 sound?

• I have HT-TZ322 Samsung home theatre system that supports up to 5.1 surround sound. The samsung dvd/receiver doesn't have a HDMI input though, but it does have a Digital Audio input(optical i think) input. I heard that for blu ray, a digital optical cable can only carry up to 2.1 sound to my home theatre, only a HDMI can carry up to 7.1. So if I connect my PS3 with a HDMI to the TV, and connect the sound with a Digital Optical Cable from PS3 to home theatre receiver, will I get the 5.1 surround sound from blu rays? Or should I connect the Digital Optical from TV to receiver and HDMI from PS3 to TV? Thanks.

• Answer:

  A TOSLINK cable (digital optical) only has enough bandwidth for PCM 2.1 (uncompressed stereo), Dolby Digital 5.1, and DTS 5.1 (compressed 5.1 surround). So if you play a Blu-ray disc that has a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 or DTS Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack on it, and you are sending the audio out through an optical cable instead of an HDMI cable, then the PS3 will play the backward compatible version of the soundtrack (Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1) and not the master audio version. So you will be able to get 5.1 surround from Blu-ray and DVD when using an optical audio connection, but it won't be the master quality audio that Blu-ray offers. "Or should I connect the Digital Optical from TV to receiver and HDMI from PS3 to TV?" This will not improve things. Even if you could get the TV to convert the HDMI audio to optical and send it out to the receiver (which may not be possible), the optical cable still has the same bandwidth limit, so nothing higher than DD/DTS 5.1 would be sent to the receiver.