Home Theatre PC - Sound Card

[Ragu24]

I am planning to build an Home Theatre PC for playing the Bluray Movies stored on my computer with the DTS and Dolby Audio. Since my motherboard doesn't have the SPDIF output I am planing to buy a dedicated sound card with Optical/SPDIF out port to passthrough all my Dolby and DTS audio to the home theatre which has the necessary decoders to decode Dolby and DTS audio. I thought of getting the ASUS XONAR DG PCI SOUND CARD, which has the Optical out port. But as many forums say that this card is able to transfer only 2.0 PCM sound via optical. I don't play games in this PC so I don't need conversion of 2.0 PCM to 5.1... I just want to passthrough the audio which are already encoded in DTS 5.1 to the Home Theatre. ... Will ASUS XONAR DG card be able to fulfill my requirements.

 

[ssddx]

can your htib take hdmi input? that would be ideal. 5.1 support uncompressed.

if not, for optical you would want to look for dts-connect or dolby digital live support. remember, your ht would need to support this as well for optical to work in 5.1

 

[Ragu24]

can your htib take hdmi input? that would be ideal. 5.1 support uncompressed.

if not, for optical you would want to look for dts-connect or dolby digital live support. remember, your ht would need to support this as well for optical to work in 5.1

Oh but sound cards which support both are really expensive.... I checked amazon for Asus Xonar DG and some people mentioned in the comments that it can passthrough Dolby and DTS.... I am really confused.

 

[ssddx]

as i said before, for 5.1 over optical to work BOTH the output (from pc, soundcard for instance) and the input (receiver / ht in this case) would need to support the same format. see if your ht supports a format of any sort via optical.

if you are running a cheap htib, not all even accept 5.1 via optical

unless there is support on both ends, its 2.0 stereo.

i think the dg lacks the software support, but i believe the dx does as it has ddl.

the first thing i would do is verify your ht accepts 5.1 inputs via optical first.

also, you never listed if you had hdmi input or not........

 

[Ragu24]

as i said before, for 5.1 over optical to work BOTH the output (from pc, soundcard for instance) and the input (receiver / ht in this case) would need to support the same format. see if your ht supports a format of any sort via optical.

if you are running a cheap htib, not all even accept 5.1 via optical

unless there is support on both ends, its 2.0 stereo.

i think the dg lacks the software support, but i believe the dx does as it has ddl.

the first thing i would do is verify your ht accepts 5.1 inputs via optical first.

also, you never listed if you had hdmi input or not........

Thanks for the reply ssddx

I am giving a lengthy sort of answer, if someone has the same question it will be helpful to them as well. I have a Sony DAV-DZ510 Home Theatre System which has Optical In. This Home Theatre System has built in Amplifier which can decode Dolby and DTS Audio. I think this system does not have HDMI input but it has something called Audio Return Channel but to have audio returned through HDMI both the devices which are connected should have HDMI with ARC function. To watch bluray movies with DTS audio (not DTS HD-MA) stored in my computer, all I need is a device probably a Sound Card that can pass-through the audio which is already encoded in either Dolby or DTS. I hope this kind of discussion is going on right from the launch of the Xonar DG Sound Card.

But to make things simple, I bought the Xonar DG Sound Card which does not have DDL or DTS-Connect. And the result was exactly as I expected. I connected the Sony Home theatre and this Sound Card through optical cable and installed the Xonar drivers. I played a movie that is already encoded in DTS in VLC media player and selected the audio output device as Xonar SPDIF Pass through and then I saw the DTS symbol light up in my Sony Home Theatre.

This is simple as I already mentioned in my previous question I don't want the sound card to make any conversion of PCM Audio to either Dolby or DTS. I just want the Sound Card to pass-through any sound that comes in. And this cheap sound card made my day.

Thank you once again very much for giving solutions to my question. As you said the Home Theatre also supports the Dolby and DTS formats so no problem at all.

 

[robert600]

"This is simple as I already mentioned in my previous question I don't want the sound card to make any conversion of PCM Audio to either Dolby or DTS. I just want the Sound Card to pass-through any sound that comes in. And this cheap sound card made my day.

Thank you once again very much for giving solutions to my question. As you said the Home Theatre also supports the Dolby and DTS formats so no problem at all. "

It's good to know that this sound card will do that - thanks for posting the result!

 

[robert600]

I was wondering if you had any movies with 5.1 AC3 audio (I don't think pass-through will work for this format so I'd be interested to see how well the card's decoder works). If you have one, can you play it and report on how it sounds through your receiver - separation of channels etc. Thanks.

 

[Ragu24]

I was wondering if you had any movies with 5.1 AC3 audio (I don't think pass-through will work for this format so I'd be interested to see how well the card's decoder works). If you have one, can you play it and report on how it sounds through your receiver - separation of channels etc. Thanks.

Yeah this sound card can pass through 5.1 AC3 (which is Dolby Digital) and 5.1 DTS and the separation of channels works great as it should. This card can also pass through all other sound formats which outputs as 2.1. If your receiver is equipped with Dolby Pro Logic then you should hear surround sound as the receiver will virtualise as if it is 5.1 (you can hear sounds from the rear channels as well in this case ...... not significant but its ok).

I think this is where Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect comes into work. In order to pass through all the sound formats as Dolby Digital audio or DTS the sound card should have the encoders built in. Asus Xonar DG doesn't have those encoders so any other sound formats other than Dolby Digital or DTS (which should be already encoded to the movie of course) will result in 2.1 Output.

 

[robert600]

ah - ok - i find the whole audio format thing very confusing. I have many movies encoded with AAC 5.1 audio - do you think with this card - using the spdif output to a 5.1 receiver - I would get only 2.1 output. Do you happen to have a movie with that audio encode that you could test with? I'm asking because I'm thinking of getting the same card.

 

[Ragu24]

ah - ok - i find the whole audio format thing very confusing. I have many movies encoded with AAC 5.1 audio - do you think with this card - using the spdif output to a 5.1 receiver - I would get only 2.1 output. Do you happen to have a movie with that audio encode that you could test with? I'm asking because I'm thinking of getting the same card.

Yeah you will get 2.1 output only with AAC 5.1. Only AC3, DTS and WMA-Pro works fine with Optical/SPDIF Connection. If it is possible you can use Analog output ports from the card to get 5.1 output.

I think most of the movies have either DTS or Dolby Audio encoded. If possible you can download the movies with DTS audio to work with this card. Or you can purchase a card with Dolby Live or DTS Connect or you can just use the Analog ports. But I don't know exactly how Dolby Live or DTS connect works with AAC audio. Dolby Live and DTS Connect can convert PCM audio into Dolby or DTS formats but encoding AAC audio is little bit different I think so.