Without any fanfare or even a passing mention in its official announcement,
the upcoming
PS3 Slim
is getting an additional feature, one long requested by
those who use the console as a Blu-ray player: it will be capable of
bitstreaming DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD to a compatible receiver for it to
decode those advanced audio signals.
This has been revealed by
Engadget, quoting a story posted
on Japanese electronics site
AV
Watch.
The regular PS3 can't bitstream advanced audio codecs because its HDMI
transmitter chip doesn't support it. Therefore, unlike the addition of DTS-HD
decoding or BD-Live support, a new firmware cannot add advanced audio
bitstreaming to existing consoles.
It has been long argued that there is no difference between decoding an
advanced audio signal on the player or on the receiver, provided they both
follow the specification. However, many users insisted they wanted to decode
in their receivers and were unhappy that the PS3 didn't offer them that
option. Now, with the slim PS3, they can choose whether to decode in the
console or in the receiver.