I really want to play my DVD-A on my HTPC and have been looking at soundcards. Creative X-Fi and Auzen models. They seem to have the specs for DVD-A but I do not know if it will actually work and none of the products list DVD-A playback as a feature. Is a certain software needed for this? I doubt Windows media player will play the DVD-A.

I really want to play my DVD-A on my HTPC and have been looking at soundcards. Creative X-Fi and Auzen models. They seem to have the specs for DVD-A but I do not know if it will actually work and none of the products list DVD-A playback as a feature. Is a certain software needed for this? I doubt Windows media player will play the DVD-A.

CyberLink PowerDVD will play DVD-A (the Ultra or Deluxe versions, at least). The MLP will be decoded in software and played through six analog outputs, not through SPDIF to a receiver.

It works well for me.

Nothing will play SA-CD AFAIK.

Creative has a dvd-a player called "mediasource dvd-a player". The Creative player I have often has trouble playing back discs which contain a watermark. Powerdvd will play dvd-audio. It will also playback watermarked dvd-a. I read somewhere that powerdvd ignored the watermark up until version 7.3.3319a. I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, but won't upgrade to a newer version.
You would have to use analog out to a receiver to play the hi-rez dvd-a. I recently tried using analog cables from my pc to my receiver using the 3 1/8 stereo analog out from my pc to six rca cables to the receiver. This worked and plays back the audio, but at extremely low volumes which I haven't solved yet.

DVD-Audio playback on PC (i.e. HTPC :)) is going to get really interesting this year. The first HDMI soundcards are coming out, the best of which is the Asus Sonar AV1. I can also tell you, that some time soon a whole lot of free open-source software media players will be able to play DVD-Audio. This is due to an open-source MLP decoder being developed at FFmpeg.

So the world of DVD-audio playback on computers, will be opened up. FINALLY. At the moment PowerDVD is the best option, and there are HDMI audio out options with some motherboards, but it's not all that clear whether PowerDVD down-samples the audio or not. But that will be irrelevant once we have the open-source players (zoom player, mplayerc etc.) that will definitely playback the disc as full-res, like it should be. And it will be interesting to see if PowerDVD competes. Uh...maybe not, it's only DVD-Audio. :)

There's a few other programs that can play back DVD-Audio, but with certain limitations/drawbacks, so they're not worth mentioning here.

just at the right time when its impossible to find new DVD-A discs...

just at the right time when its impossible to find new DVD-A discs...
But the perfect time for someone new to hi-res audio to explore the last 7 years of releases!
But for the rest of us...this year is a *little* better than last year. Not much though. :(

unfortunately some of those OOP DVD-A discs are going at premium prices. I found a Polyphonic Spree for ~$3.00 though (Amazon marketplace) - dunno them and wondering about the music

unfortunately some of those OOP DVD-A discs are going at premium prices. I found a Polyphonic Spree for ~$3.00 though (Amazon marketplace) - dunno them and wondering about the music

They were a guest star on the TV show Las Vegas. It should be an interesting disc. :-)

Doug

right after posting that, I went out for lunch and found a local copy for $21 - interesting music and a good surround mix IMO there are parts of the melodic structures that I especially like

I have both Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra on one computer and Creative X-Fi Platinum with its associated software another computer. For whatever reason the PowerDVD, which is hooked up to a much inferior system, sounds better. I have had some problem with certain discs reading with the X-Fi. I would recommend PowerDVD. Make sure you get the multichannel version. I got the Ultra that allows me to play HD DVD's or Bluray also.

The advantage of the X-Fi is that it's software allows you to take WAV files and convert them to 96/24 5.1 files. It offers a variety of formats in hirez including 96/24 4.0, WMA-lossless 5.1, and hirez 2.0 upsampling. Most of these homemade DVD-A's sound quite good. A typical CD upsampled to 96/24 4.0 will fit on one DVD-R.

I realize it is only fake hirez, but it definitely sounds different. I like many of these, a few sounded too processed. Steely Dan's Aja was much improved with better defined bass.

If you may get a Bluray drive someday, get the PowerDVD Ultra. It'll do both.