I would add a clarification to say that while tresor's comments are certainlly valid, I'm not so sure I would blame HDMI for this. That's like killing the messenger because you don't like the message. THere's plenty to point at HDMI for, but in this case it's simply the pipe that enables the various combinations of audio, and it's up to the player folks, receiver manufacturers, the studios and the people who author the discs and the DOlby and DTS groups to find a reasonable way to square up all the combinations regarding the codecs, where they get decoded and how the data streams get transported from one component to another.