Page 1 of Playstation 3 - Blu-ray sound problems

I`m now on my second PS3. Both machines have suffered from snap, crackles and pops when playing Blu-ray discs through my surround system.

The PS3 is connected to my Denon 3802 receiver via the optical cable (the receiver doesn`t have HDMI capability). Due to the restricted number of optical inputs on the receiver this is the same cable that I was using to play HD-DVD discs via an XBox 360 (with no problems).

The problem seems to be something to do with the way the PS3 is treating the surround signal from the Blu-ray discs. LPCM stereo is fine, HDMI stereo is fine when played through the TV, Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 standard DVDs are fine as well as the 5.1 sound from games.

The problem seems to be more prevalent on some discs than others. Mission Impossible 3 has pops and crackles during both the previews and the main movie. Casino Royale has them during the previews but the film seems to be OK from the bits I`ve played (the movie sound seems to be standard Dolby 5.1 so this may be a clue). I`d like to try more but some of the crackles are in danger of over-loading my speakers so it`s a risky exercise.

I`ve contacted Sony but their only suggestion was to use a phono cable (back to stereo anyone?). Apparently this is a problem that they haven`t come across before, although they admitted that the European version is a different "build" to US/Japanese versions so it hasn`t had much of a chance to generate reports of this type.

To add insult to injury, after going through all the information to set set up my Playstation on-line account, I am now unable to access it because the system won`t accept the answer to my security question. Again I`ve checked with Sony and my account is set up correctly so they say the problem must lie with the security settings on my home network and I must adjust to the "DMZ" to provide access to my system. I checked this with the guy who set up my home network and he said that the DMZ shouldn`t be touched as it would leave my network vulnerable to hackers.

I primarily bought the machine for its Blu-ray capability which is ruled out by the sound problem and the on-line problems make it less effective as a games machine so it is now on its way back to the supplier for a refund.

If Sony wanted to do their best to make the X-Box 360 and HD-DVD look good then they`ve suceeded with me. :(