DTS HD on a pc

[swindlehurst]

I currently have my gtx 770 hooked up to an onkyo TX-SR608 with hdmi. when I watch blurays I was wondering if I was getting the best sound why do people buy sound cards? I have senneiser 323D for games and I think the usb dongle thing is a sound card what upgrade optoins is there? or should I just get the bowers CM9 speakers

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

If the sound system supports DTS-HD Master Audio and is connected to the PC using HDMI or digital optical, then you will get DTS-HD quality from any media which supports it. PC games generally do not support DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD, but Titanfall supports PCM lossless.

 

[swindlehurst]

So a sound card wont be any better than a gpu sound? and im pritty sure that a optical cable from the motherboard will only carry a stereo signal had trouble a couple of years ago getting 5.1 to my amp i bought a xonar something sound card and it was garbage so i bought a ati 6950 and that worked a dream but that was a while ago has anything changed

 

[Eduello]

Most sound cards won't do better than HDMI audio, but it really doesn't depend on your PC, it depends on the receiver. HDMI is digital, so the quality is not dependent on the device that is sending the signal, but on the one that decodes the audio. Optical only carries stereo, unless the signal is compressed in Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 (not all motherboards support it though).

I don't know about your receiver, but mine tells the type of the signal on the receiver's screen whenever I start to play something through it, and I've been able to get both DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD to work through the HDMI connection of my PC (and that was with an ancient GT9600m).

EDIT: Sound cards exist because the sound quality of some older motherboards was pretty crappy, but that's not the case anymore. Nowadays only the high end cards help with quality, and that's if you have high-end headphones, the cheap sound cards are a marketing gimmick.

 

[swindlehurst]

The PS3 lights up the DTS-HD but my PC has the PCM Light on I know that PCM is better. but there seems to be no settings pc side I have loads on the amp its awsome gonna ditch itunes and go flac and put blu rays on a hard drive just wanna make sure I have the best sound I can from the PC

 

[Eduello]

So Blu-Rays on the PC also make the PCM indicator light up?

 

[swindlehurst]

yeah just comes up PCM on amp with stereo music to 7.1 dts-HD Disney Blu-Rays so Im thinking something is missing they sound awsome and the MPC-HC x64 makes films look alot better tahn my Blu Ray player oh the quest for perfection is never ending

 

[Eduello]

That's a bit odd, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. As you said, PCM is also capable of very high quality, so it should be just as good as with DTS HD-MA.

On a side note, you might want to try playing the Blu-Rays on some other player, it might be the software that's making it PCM.

 

[swindlehurst]

ok will do cheers for your help

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

I have my PC hooked up to my Blu-ray 5.1 surround home theater system using a digital optical cable and Blu-ray discs played on my PC generate lossless 5.1 audio. Games are only played in stereo through the receiver, but play in surround on my headset. That's because Realtek onboard audio does not have Dolby Digital Live for gaming.

 

[Eduello]

Happy to help

 

[swindlehurst]

I think optical cable has a transfer limit of 1500kbs so it plays compressed 5.1 but not PCM. Thats why games default to stereo I think thats right I had same problem