What does the Playbar do if it receives 5.1 Dolby Digital signal?

It downmixes the 5.1 surround channels into the front ones. PLAYBAR plus SUB is 3.1.

I see. Thanks! Does that mean that there are 3 speakers inside the Playbar? Is left-front combined with left-surround and right-front combined with right-surround in order to get it down to 3.1?

There are nine speakers in the PLAYBAR: a tweeter and two mid/woofers for each of L, C and R.

Yes, the surrounds channel information would, in the absence of physical surrounds, be mixed into the front L & R.

The PLAYBAR doesn't actually downmix the audio if it gets 5.1, from discussions with the designers, all the unique audio channels are actually used. What happens is that the two rear surround channels get pushed from the side-firing speakers and bounced out and around to simulate the rear channels. It's not quite the same as having dedicated speakers sitting there, but depending on the room setup you can get some really convincing audio that way.

The L & R are also using those tweeters obviously. So basically it's downmixing at the drive-unit level rather than at the channel level. Is there also some phased array stuff across the mids?

I don't remember on that one, but I can check. The biggest thing is that if fed 5.1 audio when you just have a PLAYBAR or a PLAYBAR and SUB, it doesn't discard any audio that comes in. It'll use all of the audio data, adding the surround tracks to the sides mostly.

The PLAYBAR doesn't actually downmix the audio if it gets 5.1, from discussions with the designers, all the unique audio channels are actually used. What happens is that the two rear surround channels get pushed from the side-firing speakers and bounced out and around to simulate the rear channels. It's not quite the same as having dedicated speakers sitting there, but depending on the room setup you can get some really convincing audio that way.

Ryan is the sound effect of a stand alone Playbar + Sub the same as when I have a 5.1 and disable the surround from the controller? Will the play bar downmix if I disable the Playbar or do I have to run true Play to get that initiated?

Ryan is the sound effect of a stand alone Playbar + Sub the same as when I have a 5.1 and disable the surround from the controller?

Yes, when you turn off the surrounds in the settings the PLAYBAR will go back to that simulated 5.1.

Will the play bar downmix if I disable the Playbar or do I have to run true Play to get that initiated?

I think here you mean if you disable the Surrounds, not the PLAYBAR, as you can't disable the PLAYBAR. I'd also want to point out that you'd definitely want to run Trueplay tuning again if you turned off the surrounds, as you'll have a very different sound profile now.