This is my first post here. I wasn't sure where to put it seeing as it covers quite a few areas.
I have a home theatre system centred around a TagMclaren AV32R sl, its old but still very capable.
I normally watch films on my Blu-ray player, but recently I have started to watch .mkv HD films on my computer, which is connected to my HDTV.
The computer was connected to my very high end hifi system with a ropey old headphone jack to one of the analogue connections on my receiver. This was obviously a crime, but that was the best my computer could do using the on board audio.
I purchased an asus xonar essence stx sound card today so I could hook up my computer to my receiver using a digital coaxial spdif cable, so I could get surround sound while watching my .mkv files (I have a 5.1 set up).
The card appears to have installed fine but when playing the .mkv files my receiver is only playing two channel audio. This is fine when I'm listening to music, but obviously not great when I want to watch a film.
Some things to note about the sound card, it is top of line for the audiophile range as opposed to the home theatre line of asus sound cards. It says it doesn't support DTS but it does do Dolby digital. I have just found out that there is another sound card that asus does which is the top of the line home theatre model which can do Dolby HD and dts HD. My receiver is 10 years old so it obviously can't decode the new HD lossless stuff.
I have done some testing and this is where things get odd. When I go the windows properties for the sound card and go to the supported format tab, there are tick boxes for Dolby digital and dts audio, when I test each of those in the same properties window my receiver comes to life and I get glorious surround sound for each, with the respective dts and Dolby digital lights coming up on my receiver.
So the sound card clearly works for standard dts and Dolby. So I'm wondering if it is the HD versions which are causing the problem? Do I need to by the HD compatible sound card or is there some software thing that I need to be doing? I have a load of codecs installed and ones that allegedly specifically deal with Dolby and dts HD. So if the computer can decode those using the codecs then surely they can still be sent to the amp and played in surround sound?
Obviously I'm not expecting my old receiver to decode HD format but when I watch blu-rays on my bd player my receiver still picks up dts surround, because a lot of blu rays have the legacy sound track on the disc. Basically I want my pc to do the same with hd .mkv
Im watching them using media player classic. One video for example says under the audio details
DTS-5.1 CH 1536K (from trueHD7.1 24bit 4492kbps)
I assume that means that it is downscaling the audio. However my receiver doesn't detect the multi channel audio and remains in two channel.
I have downloaded some test files demo-world.eu and even standard dts or dolby test files don't play properly with the receiver, which makes me think it may be the player that is at fault?
I am going to post on the asus site as well, but this is quite a general problem also that I hope you guys will be able to help with. Thank you in advance to anyone who could be bothered to read this long post and I'm confident that the audio genii on this site will be able to help
Thanks
Z
I have a home theatre system centred around a TagMclaren AV32R sl, its old but still very capable.
I normally watch films on my Blu-ray player, but recently I have started to watch .mkv HD films on my computer, which is connected to my HDTV.
The computer was connected to my very high end hifi system with a ropey old headphone jack to one of the analogue connections on my receiver. This was obviously a crime, but that was the best my computer could do using the on board audio.
I purchased an asus xonar essence stx sound card today so I could hook up my computer to my receiver using a digital coaxial spdif cable, so I could get surround sound while watching my .mkv files (I have a 5.1 set up).
The card appears to have installed fine but when playing the .mkv files my receiver is only playing two channel audio. This is fine when I'm listening to music, but obviously not great when I want to watch a film.
Some things to note about the sound card, it is top of line for the audiophile range as opposed to the home theatre line of asus sound cards. It says it doesn't support DTS but it does do Dolby digital. I have just found out that there is another sound card that asus does which is the top of the line home theatre model which can do Dolby HD and dts HD. My receiver is 10 years old so it obviously can't decode the new HD lossless stuff.
I have done some testing and this is where things get odd. When I go the windows properties for the sound card and go to the supported format tab, there are tick boxes for Dolby digital and dts audio, when I test each of those in the same properties window my receiver comes to life and I get glorious surround sound for each, with the respective dts and Dolby digital lights coming up on my receiver.
So the sound card clearly works for standard dts and Dolby. So I'm wondering if it is the HD versions which are causing the problem? Do I need to by the HD compatible sound card or is there some software thing that I need to be doing? I have a load of codecs installed and ones that allegedly specifically deal with Dolby and dts HD. So if the computer can decode those using the codecs then surely they can still be sent to the amp and played in surround sound?
Obviously I'm not expecting my old receiver to decode HD format but when I watch blu-rays on my bd player my receiver still picks up dts surround, because a lot of blu rays have the legacy sound track on the disc. Basically I want my pc to do the same with hd .mkv
Im watching them using media player classic. One video for example says under the audio details
DTS-5.1 CH 1536K (from trueHD7.1 24bit 4492kbps)
I assume that means that it is downscaling the audio. However my receiver doesn't detect the multi channel audio and remains in two channel.
I have downloaded some test files demo-world.eu and even standard dts or dolby test files don't play properly with the receiver, which makes me think it may be the player that is at fault?
I am going to post on the asus site as well, but this is quite a general problem also that I hope you guys will be able to help with. Thank you in advance to anyone who could be bothered to read this long post and I'm confident that the audio genii on this site will be able to help
Thanks
Z
