Our native mobile app has a new name: Fora Communities. Learn more.

Receiver and Gaming

1097 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Jiffylush, May 11, 2007

spinoza_43221

Discussion Starter · May 10, 2007

Perhaps some one will need to explain this to me.

But are there any home theater receivers that decode EAX 5.0 and Direct Sound 3D.

Ideally in the future Ill have 4 componets to my system

HTPC

Receiver

Display

Speakers

Its just not clear to me how the onboard audio interacts with the receiver.

Can anybody give me some info?

Save

1 - 7 of 7 Posts

krimson

· #2 · May 10, 2007

Not AFAIK?

Typically, the sound card decodes these and outputs it via 6/8 channel analog outputs. The digital out on the sound card can be used to pass through DD5.1 / DTS to the receiver.

Another option is to get a card that does DDL (Dolby Digital Live, real time DD encoding) and just run a single optical cable. That however means you will be compressing your audio to Dolby Digital... but it's a cleaner solution.

Save

spinoza_43221

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 11, 2007

okay..I guess what Im missing here is why analog for the EAX and Direct Sound and digital for the DD and DTS.

Whats the difference there that causes you too use two different solutions to pass the audio.

Save

krimson

· #4 · May 11, 2007

Because receivers decode DD/DTS but don't decode EAX/DirectSound.

You don't NEED to connect the digital cable at all, your PC can decode DD/DTS as well but you'll get the best sound quality keeping it digital.

Save

spinoza_43221

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 11, 2007

I still liked to know why. Why don't they have a receiver that decodes everything. It just seems silly to have two different methods to pass audio.

No one in the receiver market wants to step forward and say. Hook our product up to a HTPC and it will take care of all your audio needs?

Perhaps this solution is coming and Im just being impatient thinking it should already be in the market?

Save

kylebisme

· #6 · May 11, 2007

Direct Sound is an application programing interface, and EAX is extensions for that API along with extensions for OpenAL, another API. Those are not things to simply be decoded like compression methods such as Dolby Digital, but rather means to synthesize soundtracks in real time. So, after generating the soundtrack you have 1-8 discrete channels which can either be sent to the receiver independently as analog signals, or compressed into DD or DTS formats with the proper hardware. Eventually, another possible option will be to use HDMI to send up to 8 discrete channels of digital audio directly to the receiver, but I haven't heard of soundcards which support that yet.

So what you are effectively asking for is a receiver with an external soundcard built into it, where as reciver manfucatures have much better things to work on putting into their products than something which can easly be handled with PC hardware.

Also, as for DVDs, unlike games movie soundtracks obviously aren't created dynamically. The DVD audio is already compressed into DD and possibly DTS on the disk, and hence DVD can simply be passed though a digital output to the receiver or decoded directly on the soundcard.

See less See more

Save

Jiffylush

· #7 · May 11, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by spinoza_43221 /forum/post/0

I still liked to know why. Why don't they have a receiver that decodes everything. It just seems silly to have two different methods to pass audio.

No one in the receiver market wants to step forward and say. Hook our product up to a HTPC and it will take care of all your audio needs?

Perhaps this solution is coming and Im just being impatient thinking it should already be in the market?

There was mention of a new video card (pretty sure it was ati) that would pass the audio over HDMI. It was on www.hardocp.com

That would be a way to get all audio out over one cable. At that point you should be able to output PCM (already decoded) or bitstream (for the receiver to decode) over the HDMI cable with no other audio or video cables coming out of the HTPC.

This is still 'coming' so if you are building a system now you will need to do optical and analog or just forget the optical and have everything go out analog (decoded by pc).

See less See more

Save

1 - 7 of 7 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month