Dolby Digital/DTS in Vista

[sj33]

My mistake if I was confusing the issue! Certainly if I was in your position I'd be pissed off too. I have my PC connected via VGA to my 32" Bravia S at 1360x768 (the TV's native res), but I know if I had a TV capable of 1080p over DVI/HDMI it'd be an essential thing for me! Enough to make me ditch the 8800 in fact.

[Roost]

I've got a 2900XT with HDMI sound out but not got a HDMI equipped AV Receiver....yet!

Been looking at that Onkyo badboy, will go the HDMI to AV receiver route for the sound if i do buy the Onkyo

[dvdmike]

But creatives cards fake full DD and DTS thro eax

[sj33]

EAX isn't fake DD/DTS, it's a completely separate, unrelated method of producing surround sound. Analogue only though, until the forthcoming DDL/DTS Connect update for the X-Fi Prelude comes out (yet another complication of going digital, us 5.1 analogue users have things much simpler).

Works real nice in Bioshock too.

[Dazzyman]

Aye EAX is just a codec for creating multiple enviroments at the same time nowt to do with DTS/5.1 (started at with 1.0 in 98 at 4.1 I think their up to 5.0HD now) . I wish Creative would disable CMSS3d by default as well that can really mess your speakers up.

As Shakey says really is a godsend to be able to go analog now

[sj33]

I lot of people hate CMSS :P I use it, but I use the StereoSurround mode, which really does nothing more than clone the music onto the rears . Hate the void behind. Depends on your musical tastes really.

StereoSurround is why I resisted the draw of the X-Meridian when people were going nuts about it.

[sj33]

I have come back with my tail between my legs and have to take back much of what I've said over the past few pages :P
I've moved my computer over to coaxial, tons better, I never realised how much that CMSS and Crystaliser stuff was messing with the quality!

However, I've has to keep the 5.1 analogue connected too, simply for HD-DVD's. PowerDVD will basically decode the new codecs, which has no functionality to re-encode them into DD/DTS, so they're sent as 2.0 PCM (unless your playing DTS-HD where it can exctract an actual DTS tracks from it).
ffdshow actually has functionality to transcode other formats (for example, 5.2 AAC) to AC3 on the fly, it works real well. I know the recent source builds have added support for DD+, this is promising and likely the only solution until Cyberlink add similar functionality.

[Shou]

Just a few points I wanted to reply to...

- using 8600GTS with an HD CRT with no overscan issues now that nVidia has updated their drivers

- been using SPDIF with my Core 2 Duo Shuttle, outputs fine but after being up for awhile, the audio starts cutting out...anyone know if this is due to memory issues, etc?