Yeah, that sounds like something wrong with the center channel. On DVDs, most of the dialog is sent via the center, and if that's not working, things will be muted and sound funny.

First thing I'd do would be to verify that the receiver is indeed set to 5.1 mode. That is, make sure it knows that a center channel is attached, and that it tests properly with a test tone. The receiver should generate one automatically to help with leveling. Make sure it's about the same volume level as the other speakers. Then check how the PS3 is configured; make sure it's set to 5.1, and as kazar says, verify the format that it's sending in. Typically, you want passthrough -- you don't want the PS3 decoding the sound locally, you want it just sent to the receiver untouched.

If all else fails, you can try setting your Sony to "phantom center" mode, telling it that the center channel isn't there. It will then route sound intended for the center to the left and right channels. This isn't as good as a center, but ir might make movies audible if you can't get it working properly otherwise.

On Blu-Ray movies a lot of them come with uncompressed audio tracks. If a blu-ray you watch has a DTS-HD uncompressed track it likely won't go through an older receiver correctly. My old Sony receiver pops up "Linear PCM" when it comes on so it detects the type of audio correctly, but it can't decode it the right way so it ends up using Pro-Logic II.

The end result is that I always choose either a standard DTS audio track or a Dolby track. I've not come across a blu-ray yet that didn't have at least one of the two older options.

I have been playing movies with the uncompressed audio track but other than this slight dialog volume issue, they sound fine which is why I thought my receiver was just downcoding it into a format it could handle. I know it isn't dropping to Pro Logic II. This is an interesting idea though. I'm going to try adjusting the outputs from the PS3 later and I'll also try putting Red October in again and running in Dolby Digital instead.

Yeah, I checked what audio formats my PS3 was outputting and the high-end PCM tracks are disabled. I'm still getting the audio issue I've described and I watched a regular DVD through my 360 tonight and everything was fine. This has always been just a PS3 issue and I know it isn't my receiver or center channel because everything feeds through my switch into a single optical input and the speakers are configured the same way all the time. I may take this to the Sony boards and see if I can get any info there. Very strange...

Games are fine. I haven't tried regular DVDs but I will do so today. It is strange because as others have said, the "HD" version of Dolby and DTS aren't supposed to require a special receiver, they're just higher quality streams that output over the standard means. Maybe it is trying to feed a 96Khz stream which my receiver can't handle. I have that stream disabled for PCM but there's no way to turn it off for DTS and Dolby. As I understood it, these standards were supposed to include the means for the player to determine the maximum output possible and scale to that. If I disable DTS/Dolby on the PS3, will I still get proper 5.1 out of PCM alone?

I have no idea but what I meant was I disabled Dolby Surround on my actual receiver (so it was basically turned on but doing nothing but connecting the audio to the speakers), not on the PS3. I don't know if you can actually do it on yours. Since it's true uncompressed sound that doesn't even need a receiver, and regular compressed Dolby works fine, reason stands that it might be the receiver itself causing the problem. Or at least that was my problem, it was doing something to the digital signal that it just needed to leave alone.

Very interesting link. Unfortunately, HDMI audio is not viable for me if I want surround. My receiver has no HDMI capability and obviously using my TV speakers for Blu-ray kinds of defeats the purpose.

I did try changing to Bitstream in the audio options once a Blu-ray started (didn't know there were additional audio options that you could only toggle during playback) and during a test with the introductory scenes of Hunt for Red October, I definitely noticed an improvement. The dialog seems to be more in line with the rest of the audio now and also, the film doesn't seem to be driving my sub so hard which is nice because it also seemed more obnoxious and "thumpy" when playing Blu-rays previously. I think this may have done the trick. I'm going to be watching another full length Blu-ray tonight so I'll see how is stands up and report back. This has been a problem since I originally got my PS3 and I will be ecstatic if this fixed it. Thanks everyone, here's hoping!

Bitstream sends the raw data over to the reciever and lets the receiver decode it. The Linear PCM option decodes on the PS3 and sends the data to receiver to simply be amplified. I've had a lot more success using the bitstream option on my ~5 year old receiver.

I suspect the receiver just sends the decoded data on to the speakers however the PS3 tells it to in PCM mode. It may even be ignoring any processing functions you set in your receiver as the pre-processing is all being done in the PS3. Beyond that I wouldn't be surprised if the higher end audio formats have a higher dynamic range than the older surround formats, so that may be the way they are supposed to sound. Usually receivers have a range compression mode like "night mode" or something similar. Anyways i'd just use bitstream and I suspect it will solve most of your problems.

Informative article on uncompressed audio and blu-ray here: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=40821&highlight=bluray+player

I just found this thread after having the same issue. I still cannot find anything to resolve it.

I have a PS3 to play Blu-Rays on, and the audio is through optical to an older Harman-Kardon receiver (fully capable of 5.1 surround, that I have had for years).

I have had zero issues with DVDs or Blu-Rays with any sound configuration from good old mono to the standard 5.1 (sure, wish I had even more, but in time...). Whenever I play a movie, any movie, the display shows how sound is coming out (example: 2.0, 3.2/1, etc.), and when there is nothing, it just shows "Video3 Opt." Makes sense.

Being a fan of the Saw films, I have them all, and parts 5 and 6 on Blu-Ray. However, they are giving me the same issue: when the movie is played, it only shows "Video3 Opt," and even worse: the actual audio, when it comes to the voices, seems very subdued. I am pretty much forced to turn the volume up on scenes where there is dialogue and back down whenever it gets 'loud.' Again, this is not an issue on any other movie I own, be it DVD or Blu-Ray, only these two Saw films. It's not just that the dialogue audio is a little less than it seems it should be, it is actually difficult to hear - leading, of course, to having to have the remote in my hand nearly throughout the movies in order to turn the volume up and down.

Maybe the films have some super duper encoding that my aging receiver cannot handle, but, like I said, it just seems odd that it is strictly these movies. Maybe I am being tortured for enjoying them.

Sadly, neither of the films has ANY option for any other audio settings, and while I, too, did not know about the audio option from within the film itself, changing it from Bitstream to PCM did absolutely nothing - still showed "Video3 Opt" with nothing in regards to 3.2/1 being displayed, and the sound remained the same. This is extremely annoying, and from what I have read above, it seems that it is happening to more films than just the two I mentioned. It is pretty much just worth buying a DVD over a Blu-Ray for certain movies, it seems. Not cool.