Connecting speaker to my pc

[mythos]

Hello
I'm mostly an audio noob and so I have a bunch of really dumb questions .. but I learn fast so bear with me!
I've tried to gather the info together myself but I'm not getting answers to the specific questions I have, so here goes..

I have a set of Athena Micra 6 speakers Link which I'd like to connect to my PC for watching movies/playing games/listening to music.

So, what is the recommended way of doing this? Do I need a traditional AV receiver? Seems so silly.. I feel like I should just need an amp but can the pc and/or a specific sound card decode things properly? Do I need to look for specific connectors on the sound card? I'm so confused lol

As an aside to this: Do I need an upscaling DVD player to make dvds look nice at 1920x1200? Again, I feel like the pc has so much processing power, can't it handle upconversion/deinterlacing/etc? Does it require a specific dvd drive? Enlighten me please

 

[strangestranger]

well, i ain't too sure how those thnigs connect but for decoding puposes then yes a pc sound card can do it however it will be connecting it up that is the problem.

pc soundcards have 5.3mm(1/8th) mini jacks as outputs. so if you want to connect up a surround system you may need some other cables such as mini jack to rca or plain wire.

you can also get soundcards which have digital outputs if your speakers can use those.

as to dvd play back. i find that dvds look fine enough at 19 x 12. your never going to get perfect images but it does fine enough. might want to look into it more though.

tell me what the input to your sub unit is and i may be able to help more.

 

[mythos]

Sub input is optical (?) and speakers have regular speaker wire posts. Anyone else have any input??