*Official* Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 thread - Page 201

I need to point out a distinction. I was talking about analog signals from the player, since xgecko brought it up. That is different from LPCM as we refer to it here. When we say LPCM is the decoded LPCM coming digitally through the HDMI cable.

There are most probably other reasons as to why bitstreamed audio may sound different. If you have set your PC to output at higher than 48kHz, for instance, as probably most of you are doing, some of the Onkyos don't apply Audyssey for signals above 48kHz. So, when you bitstream, the audio is probably at 48kHz since not too many discs come with 96kHz audio (if you're bitstreaming regular DD/DTS bluray/DVD movies, it will always be at 48kHz or less). That's only one way in which the difference could be accounted for. Certainly bitstreaming vs. decoding in player is not the only reason it could be, and not the most probable either.

Last time I checked Stereophile were anti-science and peddling pseudo-scientific BS (those two usually come together). I wouldn't trust any kind of measurements such people perform, even with fancy instruments. Next time we'll be hearing that a wooden volume knob aligns the chakras of your quantum harmonic Higgs-Chopra bosons.

You obviously missed my posts It's OK if bitstreaming is your MAIN (and I stress MAIN) purpose, but for my purposes, it's not such a great thing. I'll be returning it unless something changes DRASTICALLY with the drivers (very unlikely considering PAP).

Sorry, but that is blatantly untrue. Your Onkyo is for all intents and purposes identical to the Integra DTC-9.8 I have and the Audyssey light only goes off if I use Direct mode. Audyssey is audibly present on all other modes; measurements confirm this. I can apply any DSP routine I desire to an LPCM stream and I have no reason to believe your 886 is any different.

LPCM is a perfect mode for Audyssey as it is already digital. Analog is the only mode where one can even begin to raise an argument due to the need to run it through a 24 bit DAC to enable the DSP to work on it.

I suggest you look more closely at the display. You should see the Audyssey light on all but Direct and perhaps a Pure mode (which I think your unit has).

So, if you truly are hearing the difference you say you hear it implies something else is going on. If you use a component capable of full-res decoding of HD content that is also capable of bitstreaming HD codecs to the 886 you should hear no difference unless the source component is manipulating the audio in some way that has nothing to do with the LPCM vs Bitstreaming issue. The facts are very, very clear on this as the data coming out of the final decode is identical and there literally cannot be any difference on that basis alone.

And you should care what the cause is because it is virtually certain something is wrong given that you are making a strong statement that you hear a difference. Hearing a difference is something it is very hard to argue with absent a true blind test, if you are truly hearing such a difference I suggest you find out what it is as it almost certainly means something is not properly set up.

I reverted to TMT2 and it is clear that it is handling the decoding of Dolby True and DTS HD-MA fundamentally different than TMT3. When you output LPCM on TMT2, it shows the bitrate using the regulat Info tab and checking Settings->Information reveals the proper bitrate as well. On TMT3, no smple rate is shown on the Info tab and Settings->Information shows downsampling to 16 bits.

I'll stick with TMT2 until TMT3 is fixed. My guess is that that part of the software was just not ready. It could not be an oversight.

TMT2 works fine. I get 24p stutter free and smooth but I have to use the 9.1 CATs. Later ones crash the program if you use hardware acceleration.

I do get a bit of a crackle each time I skip around a movie, but nothing too terrible.

We all need LPCM if we want to hear director's commentary and some other special features. I hope arcsoft fixes this soon.

I am still struggling with my install.

I am able to get a test tone through the digital coax out, but I cannot get the HDMI connection to work. I can see the output signal bouncing in Xonar's HDAV Center's EQ, but I am not getting any audio through the HMDI out.
This is with a fresh install of Vista Home Premium and a Denon AVR4308 on HMDI port 4 (I tried the others as well).

What am I missing??

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Axel

Select HDMI out in the xonar control panel. You are currently in spdif out mode.

You are not referring to the tabs (HDMI / red and white RCA) on the left of the Xonar control panel, are you? I have selected the HDMI tab, but it is not working....


My Vista Control Panel shows under Sound (3) devices:
- Speakers (ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3 Audio Device - Working)
- Digital Output (ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3 Audio Device - Working)
- Digital Output Device HDMI (High Def Audio Device - Working) - I assume this is from my ATI 4670 - I have not installed the ATI audio driver yet. I currently shows some generic MS driver. I also tried to disable it, in case there are any conflicts with the Xonar devices.

I have tried to set all 3 as Default - neither one produces any sound. Which one do I need to select for the Xonar HDMI out?
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Axel

Keep hdmi selected and do speaker test each time you try something. For now make speakers default. You're not connected by MB spdif? Now you should disable Digital Output Device (spdif) if it is enabled. Have you gone through the setup once you choose speakers as default?

Finally some progress!

I just installed the video driver (CAT 9.3) in my fresh install and now I am getting a test tone - finally! (This did not work in my initial install.)

Hmm, it appears that Xonar needs even for a simple HDMI test tone a video signal looped through.



Davinleeds,

What do you mean by 'setup', the Xonar HDAV Center?

In my current attempt, I only installed the HDAV driver from the ASUS website (PCI-HDAV-09-0213-8.17.64). Do I need anything else? I am only interested in bitstreaming audio from TMT3 (and TT).

TIA!
____
Axel

Yeah, it needs to have a video feed if that's what you mean. That's how the HD audio is enabled, by the video.

In playback devices, select Xonar speakers and configure will highlight and go through the setup with let this device take exclusive control. etc.

I have Gamer, Splendid, and previous driver. I think you can do without the first two. I don't use them, but Gamer ends up in system tray but I disable it when I remember. Splendid does work, on my projector, but not worth the effort of remembering. ASUS TMT is more tuned to not downsampling, especially it seems analog/lpcm. However, TMT3 integrates sweetly with VMC and HDDVD audio works well enough for an unsupported format.

Currently, switching settings in Xonar and then in TMT is annoying since once you start a disk you can't change settings, so you have to start over, etc.

I have been making a bit of progress... I am still struggling to make 1080p (59 or 23Hz) 'stick' on my main/2nd display. I may need to try an earlier driver (8.12?).

Nevertheless, what settings do I need for bitstreaming / pass through? I have set TMT3 to 'HDMI pass through'. What about the settings on the Xonar? I have a 7.1 setup if this matters...

This whole thing is far from being intuitive or straight forward..
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Axel

Dude, the Hadrin Collider broke, so we do not even know if the Higgs-Chopra bosons are real yet. But to be safe, I replaced all my volume knobs with teak wood. I swear the alignment of the chakras makes it sound "fuller". I am confident theyw ill find the Chopra bosons (Higgs is a poser - all he did was alter Chopra's theories a minor bit).

You should try it, I am sure you would like the new sound. I know I do.

Having another problem (the netflix issue is fixed). While playing King of the Hill (HD) or The Simpsons (HD) via VMC my receiver doesn't say 'Dolby Digital', it just says 'Multichannel' which is what it generally says. When I just used the HDMI audio out of the ATI 4850 I would get DD to show when watching DD programs in VMC, any ideas? I have it set to 96khz PCM/HDMI/8-channel/7.1 in the ASUS config and 24/96khz in the vista audio panel.

Thanks

EDIT: Just tried it at 48khz and that didn't help.

@ Davin & Lawguy,


as suspected by you I got an old stock card with firmware 1.25 it's going back tomorrow...

totally apart from that I got the chance to test it with a bunch of blurays yesterday afternoon on my htpc but the samsung Full HD TV and Onkyo 706 of a friend. Here are a few of my personal experiences:


*I had no problem getting truehd and dts-master correctly sent true on hdmi, have it correctly displayed on the Onkyo and it sounded SUPERB on all occasions (tested with: iron man, the dark knight, ....)

*When directly connected to the samsung full hd TV my htpc gave off superb video: crisp clear and full HD resolution. When we sent it through the Onkyo 706 the image was sort of 5% stretched out beyond the TV in all directions and it looked truly awfull. We couldn't get it right no matter what setting we tried so we decided to send video directly dvi-hdmi and sound alone through hdmi and that was when I was stunned to find out this was not possible. We HAD to send video along which means it's not really an option (at least not through this Onkyo unless I miss something) looking at terrible image quality just to get the sound right

*PCM was detected by the Onkyo as "MULTICH 7.1" on the display but it sounded dull and 'incomplete' (pretty much like simple stereo sent to all speakers by dolby prologic II for comparison). Any simple dolby 5.1 or dts track on the discs sounded alot better than any of the PCM tracks on the discs. We couldn't get this right either and it's a shame because at least 3 of my test blurays had their main track as PCM. I don't know if this is normal or if we missed something as we are no experts. (tested with Kill Bill I&II, Kungfu Hustle, Tori amos live @ Montreux, ...)

*we had great trouble keeping the image detected by the Onkyo. Whenever switching away resolution or trying to connect 2 displays at once it would lose it's signal and not be found back until full disconnect on the htpc and reconnect. Every 'scanning' attempt also took very long (about 10 seconds) so changing a simple option every time and rescan for signal took ages

note: this setup had no physical center speaker (4+subwoofer). The onkyo is supposed to automatically mix in the center through the 2 front speakers. Could that be the reason ?

note: used digital out in vista on almost all occasions and HDMI out in xonar panel (192khz, 5.1 or 7.1 channels) and hdmi pass-through in TMT3

Either the Onkyo, or the GPU with presence of the Onkyo is adding 5% overscan to the picture. Normally this can be corrected with most drivers.


My theory: HDMI jitter which is more apparent on LPCM than Bitstream formats.

I'm using TMT + Onkyo PCI 200 SE (a soundcard that sounds like a 4000 EUR high-end CD player on it's 2CH OUT - yes I know - I own two of such cd-players) + 7.1 analog output to my Onkyo RDC7 and all these high-res formats sounds very good. LPCM never sounds dull. It never sounds like a jittery source (boring, no soundstage, no depth, no atmosphere, sloppy bass, no magic in the sound). Reason ? It's never transported over HDMI.

This is the same discussion why the PS3 sounds dull on the toslink out for PCM, but is enjoyable with DTS and DD passthrough: jitter. Bitstream formats are less dependent on clock recovery for their master clock because they first need to decode a block of data which is then decoded to PCM, while with PCM on HDMI there's no further decoding, so the clocking is always based on incoming clock so it must be recovered as HDMI is jittery.


this is a known onkyo issue


nope, all processors support speaker remapping, phantom channels, speaker fill, bass management ...

That on the money thanks David, exactly my problem.

I still cant get True HD sound yet but ill keep trying next weekend.

Just hdmi selected and 7.1, check your mixer settings if not default. Do speaker test as you progress.
Look at the BD users guide where you got the drivers at ASUS, good info.
HD track in movie.
HDMI into Xonar from video card and out to AVR.
At work now, but will check back later.

Loading right now - thanks for the tip!
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Axel

At first i had windows xp and i tried vista yesterday ...same problem
now i have done a clean install of xp but i still have the same problem.

i send an email to arcsoft and asus but i don't hear a thing....

Have you tried Display 1 to TV, 2nd display to Xonar , Xonar to AVR?

I tried this and yes i see my reciever but when i try a bd in tmt it says your system is not compatibble with HDCP , BD playback is disabled.

Try the BD advisor to see which item(component) is being flagged? It's at the ArcSoft site where TMT3 is.

it says connector type is analog (not dhcp-compliant) is this because my reciever is not connected to a display ? (if i connect my reciever to the display the same one that my graphics card is connected to i see 2 samsungs and i don't see my reciever annymore)

Yamaha RX V1800 right? Is your Samsung HDCP compliant?
Try a different hdmi?
Anything wrong/different with your hdmi cables?
Have you played BD before Xonar?

Yes , yes
i now use the bd/hdvd hdmi
cables should be fine
Yes without trouble and also no problem with xonar but i can't get hd audio to bitstream , now i can't play bd with this hdmi setup .

I would connect as instructions in Xonar manual. Leave Yamaha on and reboot computer. You have the XP driver from ASUS and no conflicts in device manager. Xonar should be default audio.
Try a different hdmi in the Yamaha. Do you have another desktop, HDCP comlpiant, monitor to try?

Ok back to original setup 9800-xonar-rxv1800-samsung "everything" works again
no i don't have another desktop, HDCP comlpiant, monitor to try


the strange thing is when i try to bitstream the hd audio (which does not work) the movie goes very slow.

Do you have your Mother Board audio disabled? Any other audio cards?

What does the receiver indicate with other audio streams with Xonar?

Yes onboard audio disabled no other soundcard,
normal DTS or DOLBY DIGITAL are no problem