[asolof]

I bought one of these today. When I opened the box to look at it, it doesn't have a digital audio out connection.


I want to use the pc as a Blue-Ray player/htpc.


In the specs it says:




It has no external audio connectors on the graphics card. There are external connectors for multichannel analog output on the motherboard. What I need to know is can I get optimal sound connecting my Onkyo SR-805 receiver's multichannel analog inputs to the pc's multichannel analog outputs?


Can I get Dolby truehd and other lossless signals with this multichannel analog connection?


If not, other than returning the computer, what other options do I have?

 

[5harkology]

bump

 

[joeynym]

I am new to the game, but here is a possible solution...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829156001



Nice pick up, nice looking htpc.

 

[5harkology]

So can these soundcards decode trueHD and pass it through via analog outputs?

 

[joeynym]

not sure, but here is the specs..

Code:

Model
Brand   AuzenTech
Model   XPlosion 7.1
Audio core
Audio Chipset   C-Media CMI8770
Channels        7.1
Sample Rate     96KHz
Digital Audio   24-bit
Ports
Line In         Yes
Line Out        Front/Rear/Center/Subwoofer/Rear Center
SPDIF Out       Optical and Coaxial
MIDI/Joystick   No
CD/Aux In       No
Spec
Interface       PCI
Features
Features        World First Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect certified PCI board sound card!
Converts any of your movies, games, music audio into a Dolby Digital or DTS Surround Sound! Stereo is boring, surround sound is fun! DTS Connect makes it easy to turn your computer into the ultimate PC sound entertainment experience.

With Auzentech HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect installed, it will transform your PC environment into a movie theater - it's the best seat in the house for a concert - and it's the coolest way to enjoy games. It's the new Auzentech HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect.
DTS Connect is the latest thing from DTS that turns your PC into an action-packed entertainment experience that surrounds you in sound. Make your movies, music and games come alive in exciting, dynamic, multi-channel DTS Digital Surround®, the same sound format found in movie theaters. DTS Connect is a whole new way to enjoy your PC.

Other Advantages & Benefits of Auzentech HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect feature: Dolby Digital Live!
1. Uses a single digital connection:
Ensures the integrity of the audio signal
Eliminates confusion, hassle, and clutter of multiple analog and digital connections
2. Transform all PC audio signals into a Dolby Digital Signal.
Dolby Digital is the audio backbone for home networks
Enables playback over millions of home theater systems equipped with Dolby Digital Decoding
3. Optimized for low-latency interactive applications
No perceptible delay between video and audio game play
4. Provides realistic 5.1 channel surround sound effects during interactive active video game play
Immerses PC and game console players in a highly realistic game experience
Packaging
Package Contents        HDA X-PLOSION 7.1 DTS Connect Audio Card
MPC to MPC(2pin-2pin) CD S/PDIF audio cable
TOSLINK fiber optic digital cable
Driver Disk
warranty card
owner's manual

 

[John DeLuca]

I bought one of these Gateway GM5664 systems last week and just got it all configured this weekend. I have to say, I'm very happy with the system so far. This is the first store-bought system I have ever used since I normally build my own but my wife was getting frustrated with my last HTPC so I decided to give this system a try.


asolof: There is no digital audio out port like sp/dif but the HDMI port will pass 5.1 with the supplied DVI to HDMI dongle. It was a bit finicky to get 5.1 working but once I found the driver on Realtech's site, it's been working great. I'm not sure if it will pas TrueHD through the analog out ports since I don't have the cables to do so but I don't see why it wouldn't since there are outputs from the sound card itself. I haven't messed with that but plan to do so further down the line. I needed to get tv recording back up for this weeks shows so I concentrated on that.


The system comes with an analog and digital OTA tuner which is really nice. I added my Hauppage 950 USB digital tuner so I now have 1 analog and 2 digital tuners capable of recording which all worked perfectly when I tested them last night.


I was a bit hesitant about the video card since I'm not familiar with the ATI HD 2400XT but so far, I haven't seen any issues. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies all played without an issue with the ones I tested. Hi-Def MKV files played fine as well and even Quicktime 1080p trailers were very smooth so I have to say, this system is really looking good. Every piece of hardware got in the high 5 range in the Vista score except for the video card which is to be expected since it's not a gaming card and I don't plan on playing any games with this system. I haven't tried benchmarking anything with the Phenom CPU but so far the system is plenty fast for me.


The one odd thing I have seen is the system can sometimes be a bit flaky recognizing certain USB devices. You can plug it in one port and it won't recognize it, but move it to another and it works fine.

 

[asolof]

John,


Have you been able to view a DVD at full screen at 1080p? Mine would not fill the screen no matter which player I selected.

 

[thughes114]

New to forum. Just hooked up my HDTV to the GM5664 with a HDMI cable. I get picture, but no sound. Any suggestions?

 

[richAVard]

John,


How does the new GATEWAY look with upconverting your standard DVD's?

I was standing in Fry's today, so tempted. It would make a nice addition to my set-up.

 

[John DeLuca]

Sorry. Didn't know this thread was revived To answer the questions about viewing DVD's, I enabled DVD Library through Vista Media Center and have no issues viewing them at 1920x1080. At that resolution, I am very happy with the quality of them being up-converted.


I was never able to get 5.1 in PowerDVD when using the HDMI connection so I added a Sound Blaster X-Fi which allowed me to outout via SP/Dif. Someone just mentioned to me that this might be fixed in the new PowerDVD 8 so we shall see but I like the idea of not having to leave Media Center and can view all of my folders in a Library so I would most likely use PowerDVD just for Blu-Ray.

 

[casino187]



Quote:
Originally Posted by John DeLuca /forum/post/13445221


Sorry. Didn't know this thread was revived To answer the questions about viewing DVD's, I enabled DVD Library through Vista Media Center and have no issues viewing them at 1920x1080. At that resolution, I am very happy with the quality of them being up-converted.


I was never able to get 5.1 in PowerDVD when using the HDMI connection so I added a Sound Blaster X-Fi which allowed me to outout via SP/Dif. Someone just mentioned to me that this might be fixed in the new PowerDVD 8 so we shall see but I like the idea of not having to leave Media Center and can view all of my folders in a Library so I would most likely use PowerDVD just for Blu-Ray.

Did your computer have an HDMI output on it? Mine has 2 DVI outputs. Gateway is sending me a dongle, but I had no idea that you could convert DVI to HDMI, with audio. I'll have to see how this works.

 

[MarvinZ]

Hey Guys,

Any update you would have on this would be appreciated! I have been ripping my hair out on this PC since I bought it two weeks ago.
Sound

I was very disappointed to find that the MB on the system did not have a s/pdif out. I bought the SB x-fi to add the optical out and I can not get PowerDVD to output DD or DTS. I downloaded TotalMedia Theatre trial and I can get the DD and DTS to work but only with HDDVD.

Video

How did you get the DVI to HDMI to send audio? My system was sent without the dongle so I am using a generic DVItoHDMI converter. When I try to use this I do not get any sound.


Can you guys help?!?!?!


Thanks

 

[casino187]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MarvinZ /forum/post/13717502


Hey Guys,

Any update you would have on this would be appreciated! I have been ripping my hair out on this PC since I bought it two weeks ago.
Sound

I was very disappointed to find that the MB on the system did not have a s/pdif out. I bought the SB x-fi to add the optical out and I can not get PowerDVD to output DD or DTS. I downloaded TotalMedia Theatre trial and I can get the DD and DTS to work but only with HDDVD.

Video

How did you get the DVI to HDMI to send audio? My system was sent without the dongle so I am using a generic DVItoHDMI converter. When I try to use this I do not get any sound.


Can you guys help?!?!?!


Thanks

I bought my system from buy.com a week or so ago, but I still haven't hooked it up. I did call gateway and had them send me a remote control and the hdmi dongle, because it did not come with it. I have no idea if it is special or not, it doesn't look special. I didn't even know it was possible to send audio out through the dvi port. I will hook mine up this weekend and see what I can find out.


I will be hooking up the HDMI directly to my receiver and in theory it should play both audio and video, but I have my doubts.


Feel free to let me know of any updates that might help me out. I will do the same.

 

[John DeLuca]



Quote:
Originally Posted by casino187 /forum/post/13641948


Did your computer have an HDMI output on it? Mine has 2 DVI outputs. Gateway is sending me a dongle, but I had no idea that you could convert DVI to HDMI, with audio. I'll have to see how this works.

Mine has DVI out as well but I was given a dongle in the box when I bought the PC. This dongle allows sound to be passed through so you should have no problems getting sound.

 

[John DeLuca]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MarvinZ /forum/post/13717502


Hey Guys,

Any update you would have on this would be appreciated! I have been ripping my hair out on this PC since I bought it two weeks ago.
Sound

I was very disappointed to find that the MB on the system did not have a s/pdif out. I bought the SB x-fi to add the optical out and I can not get PowerDVD to output DD or DTS. I downloaded TotalMedia Theatre trial and I can get the DD and DTS to work but only with HDDVD.

Video

How did you get the DVI to HDMI to send audio? My system was sent without the dongle so I am using a generic DVItoHDMI converter. When I try to use this I do not get any sound.


Can you guys help?!?!?!


Thanks

I did the exact same thing with the x-fi due to the lack of HDMI sound not working in PowerDVD. Did you set PowerDVD to output via sp/dif? You may want to also disable the HDMI audio as well in the sound settings. I had no issues with sound though once I installed the X-Fi but I definitely disabled the HDMI audio in the soound settings. I don't remember if I disabled it in the BIOS also. I will have to check that to make sure.

 

[John DeLuca]



Quote:
Originally Posted by casino187 /forum/post/13717568


I bought my system from buy.com a week or so ago, but I still haven't hooked it up. I did call gateway and had them send me a remote control and the hdmi dongle, because it did not come with it. I have no idea if it is special or not, it doesn't look special. I didn't even know it was possible to send audio out through the dvi port. I will hook mine up this weekend and see what I can find out.


I will be hooking up the HDMI directly to my receiver and in theory it should play both audio and video, but I have my doubts.


Feel free to let me know of any updates that might help me out. I will do the same.

I had issues running the HDMI through my receiver just to warn you. I have an Onkyo with HDMI in but every time I switched inputs on the receiver to a different device, my desktop resolution would be changed back to something like 640x480. I did some research and there is this device called the DVI doctor that supposedly fixes this but I heard that you cannot use audio with this device so I didn't try it out. I heard they are making a newer one that will support this but I haven't looked into it recently. I have my video going directly to my tv through a DVI to HDMI cable and the audio is going sp/dif to my receiver. Everything is working so I have left it alone for now. Once the new HDMI 1.3 sound cards come out, I may revisit this whole setup though.

 

[MarvinZ]

Thanks for all the quick feedback.

John

I am not using a HDMI equipped receiver but one with multiple digital inputs. I had no success with PDVD on any DD or DTS tracks but did have success with TotalMedia. The system sound properties recognize the SB x-fi and it outputs DD, DTS and WMA. Media center also sends out the proper signals so I wonder if it is just PDVD. I even installed the latest patch for that...

Casino,

I also purchased mine from Buy.com and it was lacking the remote, wireless KB, wireless mouse and the HDMI dongle. How did you get Gateway to send yo the replacements? i contacted Buy but they were no help....

 

[casino187]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MarvinZ /forum/post/13719135


Thanks for all the quick feedback.

John

I am not using a HDMI equipped receiver but one with multiple digital inputs. I had no success with PDVD on any DD or DTS tracks but did have success with TotalMedia. The system sound properties recognize the SB x-fi and it outputs DD, DTS and WMA. Media center also sends out the proper signals so I wonder if it is just PDVD. I even installed the latest patch for that...

Casino,

I also purchased mine from Buy.com and it was lacking the remote, wireless KB, wireless mouse and the HDMI dongle. How did you get Gateway to send yo the replacements? i contacted Buy but they were no help....

contact gateway for the warranty service. I did it all over the phone and they sent me a new remote and dongle promptly for free.

 

[MarvinZ]



Quote:
Originally Posted by casino187 /forum/post/13719341


contact gateway for the warranty service. I did it all over the phone and they sent me a new remote and dongle promptly for free.

Thanks for that Casino. I will let you know how I get on with my PC and its' configuration.

 

[grep]

I finally hooked up an OTA HD antenna and the playback is extremely choppy for both audio and video. Has anyone else had this problem? Solutions?


Thanks,


George