Asus upcoming Xonar AV1 HDMI soundcard

HDMI 1.3? LPCM 7.1? Dolby TrueHD? DTS-HD MA?
These things were not mentioned in the article.

There's already a thread on this topic - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1001298


I would imagine more information will be released at Cebit next week.

Can this be done already with the Radeon Video Cards - uncompressed PCM multichannel over HDMI? Could the video part be ignored & this card used as if it was a soundcard ie. is it recognised by OS & playback software as a soundcard? Like you guys, I'm only interested in the audio part - was looking to run hdmi to Panasonic SA-XR57 Digital amp hdmi input for 2 or multichannel sound!

New to hdmi so unsure of the answer to this?

Wow.. i was doing a search over the internet and found this in an HK forum:


http://www.av100fun.com/viewtopic.ph...a7060fa3b2b0b4

The Radeon Vid Cards can only do uncompressed 2 channel PCM or compressed 5.1. Basically, they made their HDMI port into a combined video and SPDIF port - it has all the limitations of SPDIF except it also passes video.

A ha! Thanks CybrSage! That explains why there is excitement over the ASUS sound cards!

Mentioned on Anandtech a while back as well:

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=3252&p=6

As you can see in the article, they will also have an output card that allows those with non-HDCP video cards to convert their DVI output to HDCP compliant HDMI.

Latest preview from June 4th, now I can't wait the release date at the end of july!!!:
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=3324

And official press release from Asus too:
http://www.asus.com.tw/news_show.aspx?id=11638

btw you can note the slight change of name of the card to Xonar HDAV1.3.

Very interesting card. Also, quite confusing because of a lack of specifics on the ASUS press release.

The press release infers that this is both an audio and a video card. Yet there is an HDMI input. One of the anadtech articles says that the HDMI input is a clumsy way to send HDMI from your video card through the HDAV1.3 for high bit rate audio codec decoding.

Question #1: Can I plug the HDMI output of my HD-A2 into the HDAV1.3 and have it decode the DTS-MA or DD+ or Dolby True HD from the HD-DVD disc?

Question #2: If I don't care about gaming on my HTPC, why should I get another video card, since the HDAV 1.3 does the video?

Question #3: Could I use this card with AnyDVD HD to make a hard disk backup copy of an HD-DVD? Then, when my player dies (an inevitability) I will still have a way to play the movies I paid for.

Steven

#1 - No, and I don't even see how that could work since the card cannot control the HD-DVD player.

#2 - The HDAV doesn't 'do' video. It reprocesses it, whatever that means. It must be Splendid though. (there is a joke in there somewhere)

#3 - I don't think it can actually record what it gets from the HDMI-In plug. If it could they would be shut down faster than an Intellectual Property lawyer can say DMCA. However, there apparently is a non-HDCP HDMI based recording card coming out by some other manufacture.

There are only four reasons to get this card.
To continue gaming using EAX5 in Vista while thumbing your nose at Creative.
To have very high quality 8 channel analog out
To enjoy HD Bitstream audio on both HDMI and through the analogs
To 'sharpen' your video images

I do wonder if it is possible to feed any HDMI signal through the HDMI-In and Out and have Splendid reprocess it. Kind of like a cheap scaler.

#1 I don't understand what you mean by "control" the player and why that has anything to do with being able to decode, what he is asking. I assume he means, can he stream audio from his HD-DVD player into the ASUS AV1, then have the sound card decode the track to analog. As far as I know, we don't have an answer for this yet. My initial guess is no.

#2 Correct, the card cannot render any video, meerly reprocess what it gets (upscale, color correction, sharpening, etc) and also mux in audio.

#3 You do not need a card such as this to back up BluRay or HD-DVD movies. You use AnyDVD with a PC Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive (such as the Xbox 360 USB drive). It strips out the encryption transparently, allowing you to copy the raw HD files to your hard disk. Here you can edit and play them, however you need a player that supports HD content such as CyberLink PowerDVD 8 etc. You could also transcode the files into something like h.264 with a DTS audio stream for better compatibility and compression.

My guess is you don't want to by a PC HD-DVD drive, and want to capture the HD content via the AV1. This wont work because of HDCP, even if the AV1 can capture stuff.

This card main attraction is that it will allow you to transmitt multichannel LPCM over HDMI or if used with the bundled version of TMT bitstream the new HD audio codecs i.e. TrueHD, dts MA etc to a compatable receiver where it can be decoded. In addition to this it will have high quality DAC's for digital to analogue conversion so people without HDMI capable amps can still enjoy HD sound with decent quality vs onbourd sound/naff sound card solutions.

The reason this card is so IMPORTANT in the HTPC arena is it supports PAP for a secure digital path which is required under AACS for anything above 16 bit / 48 kHz from Blu ray/HD DVD and the reason why commercial software players currently downres all audio to this at the min (current solutions such as Intel G35 and nvidea 8200 support multichannel LPCM over HDMI but due to software limitations you can only get what is stated above). The only way round this at the min is to re-encode HD audio to flac and use a dirrectshow capable player to achieve full bitrate 24 bit sound.

1. No the card doesn't support audio input only video through its HDMI interface.
2. The card doesnt do video only minor sharpening/post-processing.
3. Their are many ways to back up Blu ray and HD DVD to whatever format you would like and to be able to extract full bitrate/resolution sound ....If these methods are followed then a card like this is obsolete since its already possible to get audio and video at full quality via HDMI (like my G35 solution ) but no it will not allow capture via HDMI it lacks the appropriate circuitry.

A number of other solutions will also hit the market later this year which have simular functionality (perhapse bar bitstream capability) i.e. ATI 4xxx cards.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Jiff.

This sound card and the optional daughter card (for 6 analogue channel outpu) are of PCI-express x1 interface. Too bad as my HTPC has only one PCI-express x1 slot

As you said the daughter card is optional. If you don't need the analog out (which you shouldn't since the whole reason for this card's existence is the hdmi out with bitstream/lpcm), don't plug in the optional hassle.

My uses for a HTPC are a little unusual. I have a project recording studio in a spare bedroom, next to my home theater/audio system. I use Event monitors in the studio. I currently do my surround monitoring only in quad, due to limited space. The Event's are great for near-field, but I need to check my surround and stereo mixes on standard audio system speakers. Also, I can't do 5.1 or 7.1 in my small studio's space.

I want to use my HTPC to host my Digital Audio Workstation, so I can do my mixing and mastering on my Apogee ribbon speakers. One of the reasons I'm looking at this card is that I expect to eventually create my masters in True HD 7.1 (at 24/96 resolution). I need to be able to send a True HD encoded bitstream from the hard drive on my DAW before I create a rendered Blu Ray disc. If there is an issue with the encoding process, I want to fix it before I waste an expensive blank disc.

I also have a large number of pre-recorded quad reel to reel tapes that are slowly degrading. (You haven't lived until you've heard Zappa's Overnite Sensation in discrete quad!)

I want to ba able to back them up (for now on DVD-Audio), in True HD on Blu Ray disc. Then I wont have to play these recordings from the original tapes, which degrades the audio a tiny bit each time they pass the heads of my Tascam 44.

As far as the analog six channel daughter card, I don't need it for my purposes. I just want to be able to bitstream TrueHD and Master Audio Lossless to my pre/processor.

That clarification done, if I get this right, you still need a separate graphics card in your HTPC with a DVI or HDMI output. This graphics card feeds the AV1 card's HDMI input. Which begs the question... "If you have a graphics card capable of HDTV at 1980p24/60, why have any video processing at all on the AV1 card? "

I don't do games, so I need a basic graphics card that is capable of full HD resolution. Nothing more. Also, I have an Onkyo Pro SCP-885P which has a a Reon- HQV chip for video processing. I don't need any kind of video enhancement.

I am also considering the LG GGW-H20L HD-DVD/Blu Ray burner for the HTPC. I want to ditch my Toshiba HD-A2 and back up my HD-DVD movies (mostly concerts) to Blu Ray. That way, when the LG drive fails (an eventuality), I'll still have the concerts. I want to be sure I get the full high definition audio tracks on the backups. This is the second reason for my consideration of this card.

If I read Hellfire51's reply correctly, I can play the HD-DVD on the LG drive, and use AnyDVD to rip it (without encryption, including the high bit-rate audio) to my hard drive. Then I could make a backup on the LG using it's Blu Ray burner. Am I correct here?

Will the Blu Ray burner record the sound track in it's native high bit-rate format?

Steven

scratch, I was thinking the same about the video processing. Personally, I will probably turn it off. The ONE video processing effect I might like to see is some sort of cadence correction. I very frequently see a bit of camera stutter in panning shots in the videos I watch on my PC. Unless the card is much smarter than I think it will be, applying processing in the AV1 will affect all video going through the card, so not only will your movies be sharpened and tweaked, but your desktop, your web browser, etc. Not to mention that most of the tweaks I expect to be able to apply via this card are already availible in the form of Nvidia or ATI control panel -- or the video playing software itself. So I think the video processing will be useless.

I have not used AnyDVD HD myself, so I cannot speak from experience, however what my understanding of it is that it sits in your system tray and transparently decrypts the disk on the fly. So any software you have capable of backing up the disk will be able to pull the decrypted movie. You could also just copy the files to your hard disk. The only part I am unsure of is burning them back to Bluray, as I am not sure what is out there as far as Bluray authoring software. It will probably have to be reencoded for the Bluray standards for players to be able to play it. You could also just transcode it to h.264, that would be easier, albeit at a slight loss of quality.

Steven,

What software are you using to create the True-HD?

I just installed the Onkyo 885. How are you getting audio into it from the HTPC?

I was using Analog to get uncompressed and Lossless audio, but that is not processed by Audyssey, so now I am back to AC3. That is why I'm on this thread. I hope the AV1 card will work well.

~Jay

There is no electrical connection on the analog board, so you should be able to plug it into a PCI slot if need be. The connector is only there to physically support the card.

Any idea what the price for the HDMI (no analog daughter) card will be? Also is there a way to internally connect a video card and how does that work?

Just wanted to update the post to say the new ATI 48xx vid cards carry 8 channel pcm over the HDMI port - provided you use the upper (furthest from the motherboard) video out port on the card. The other port does not carry audio.

According to Tomshardware, the asus hdmi sound card will be released Q3 2008.

Sigh...long wait.

EDIT: That article is wrong when it talks about the capabilities of the 8200. It says:

"There are those who might argue that products like the GeForce 8200 and 780G chipsets...represent a first step in this direction; and they’d be right. But at present, they emit only two-channel LPCM, and won’t bitstream the high-bandwidth Dolby and DTS formats."

The 8200 does 8 chanel LPCM over HDMI.

Now I cannot trust their dates either.

Well one of the receivers I wanted to pair up the Asus HDMI card with is available now - the denon 1909.

Hurry up asus!!

Seems like I remember reading that it was going to be a mid july launch. If that is so then it's about almost mid July. Also any word on pricing?

The Xonar HDAV1.3 Audio card is now up on the ASUS global website. "http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=25&l2=150&l3=0&l4=0&model=2355&modelmenu=1

Great!

Looks like soon then. It seems that lossless pcm will be first and bitstreaming will be an update that they say will be released soon.

Yeah that worries me a bit. From the link:
"NOTE: Bundled version supports high-definition audio decoding and playback, including DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, and Dolby Digtial Plus. Advanced HDMI 1.3 HD audio pass-through feature will be available soon via TMT patch update.
NOTE: Operating Systems supported by TotalMedia Theatre are Windows VISTA 32/64 and XP 32"

(+) Vista x64. I thought TMT had trouble with this os.
(-) Bitstream: Later? why? Now!!! I thought they demonstrated this at the trade show already. Why take that away!!
(+) EAX 5.0 for my games. Don't think Auzentech has this.

Now where is that buy button. I want. I want!!

They are waiting on the HD audio Bitstream because they haven't finished one of the codecs. I think it can do DolbyHD but not DTS-MA, or maybe it is reversed. I think they are waiting to role out the HD audio drivers until they can support the entire package instead of piecemealing it.