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Revolution 7.1 - analog + digital out at the same time?

1229 Views 23 Replies 13 Participants Last post by Cliff Watson, Apr 28, 2003

christur

Discussion Starter · Apr 8, 2003

Does anyone know if the maudio revolution will allow me to output to the analog and digital (coax) output simultaneously?

Hereâ€™s what I want:

Watching a DVD -> dolby digital / DTS over coax, 5.1 channels from analog outs, same time.

Watching PVR (MCE) -> circle surround II over coax, and analog outs, same time.

Music / videos / ripped DVDs -> same as above, unless itâ€™s WMAPro, in which case I want WMAPro 5.1 coming our of the analog ports. Iâ€™d like it to have the same from coax, but I understand I canâ€™t have that w/o nforce 2.

THANKS!

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1 - 20 of 24 Posts

RDaneel

· #2 · Apr 8, 2003

Chris and I seem to be reading each other's minds on this Revo card - right?

I am wondering if it will let me plug the analog into the reciever for windows sounds, stereo audio, Winamp, etc. but have the coax SPDIF into the receiver at the same time, and automatically know when to output DD/DTS to the receiver. Is this as simple as telling windows to output analog and TheaterTek to use SPDIF? I hope so...

RD

Weiman

· #3 · Apr 8, 2003

Bump

I'm wondering exactly the same thing as RD..

christur

Discussion Starter · #4 · Apr 8, 2003

Well after waiting on hold for 5 minutes, they confirmed that this is not possible, that it's either analog or digital, not both.

SO, Does anyone know of a sound card that does this?

Thanks!!!

audioqueso

· #5 · Apr 8, 2003

Turle Beach Santa Cruz. But it resamples the digital output at 48k.

Weiman

· #6 · Apr 8, 2003

Well my plain old SB Live Value does it just fine... except it also resamples to 48kHz. Too bad M-Audio can't get it right...

MrGonk

· #7 · Apr 8, 2003

You could probably get something similar going on the Revo by using it in conjunction with a motherboard that has the NForce 2 chipset with integrated sound, considering it has that SPDIF port on it. Right?

David O

· #8 · Apr 9, 2003

My dirt-cheap Leadtek 6x sound card does both anlalog and digital separately.

JKohn

· #9 · Apr 9, 2003

Quote:

Watching PVR (MCE) -> circle surround II over coax, and analog outs, same time.

How do you expect to do circle surround II over coax, coax is either DD/DTS passthrough or 2-channel PCM. You can't do 6/7 channel PCM over coax, last time I checked.

Why do you want to output coax and analog at the same time? I seriously doubt your Receiver can play both at the same time.

JKohn

· #10 · Apr 9, 2003

Quote:

I am wondering if it will let me plug the analog into the reciever for windows sounds, stereo audio, Winamp, etc. but have the coax SPDIF into the receiver at the same time, and automatically know when to output DD/DTS to the receiver. Is this as simple as telling windows to output analog and TheaterTek to use SPDIF? I hope so...

RD, I think what you're trying to do will be no problem. SPDIF passthrough in DVD software is separate from whether you have analog or digital output selected in the M-Audio config applet, I think. At least, on my workstation (where I'm using the analog outputs for music and system sounds), if I go into PowerDVD it gives me the choice to select SPDIF. I can't actually test the SPDIF though because I don't have a receiver in here. But you should be OK. What you're trying to do is different from what christur is trying to do.

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christur

Discussion Starter · #11 · Apr 9, 2003

I was hoping that would be possible to do this over coax, but I guess not.

From what I understand, the nforce 2 "soundstorm" chip does real time encoding of WMP Pro to DD so that you sort of get 6 channel PCM over coax. I was hoping that the revo would do something similar but it looks like no.

As for why I want to to both at the same time, I use my HTPC (MCE box) in the home theater room connected digitally to a surround sound setup. I have a channelmaster modulator / IR system also, and want to get my MCE box on some channel to all the rest of the TV's in my house.

There are only 4 ways that I've found to do this:

1) Output analog to the multi-ch in on the reciever and put a y in front channel line so that it goes to the reciever and the modulator. This is what I'm doing now, but I'd much prefer the expensive audio gear to decode.

2) Output digitally to the reciever, and have it pre-out to the modulator. This doesn't work for me because I can't have the reciever always on and set to that source.

3) (not even sure this would work) Using coax, Output digitally to 2 recievers with a y cable, one for the theater, one just to get to pre-out. Oddly, this option is pretty cheap as I could find an older DD receiver w/pre outs for ~ $100. Anyone know if you can split coax like this?

4) Find a sound card that does both at the same time.

Since I don't care much about quality on the analog (it's being modulated mono anyway

, the SB live or TB santa cruz might be options. Does the re-sampling on these cards affect the digital out?? If no, I might be in business.

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JKohn

· #12 · Apr 9, 2003

Quote:

Since I don't care much about quality on the analog (it's being modulated mono anyway , the SB live or TB santa cruz might be options. Does the re-sampling on these cards affect the digital out?? If no, I might be in business.

The resampling affects PCM digital out, but not DD/DTS passthrough.

Weiman

· #13 · Apr 9, 2003

Quote:

SPDIF passthrough in DVD software is separate from whether you have analog or digital output selected in the M-Audio config applet, I think.

Well that's at least something. Can anyone confirm that DD/DTS passthrough works with analog output selected in the control panel?

Quote:

Why do you want to output coax and analog at the same time? I seriously doubt your Receiver can play both at the same time.

No, but I'd like to be able to switch between them (on the receiver) without having to open the control panel and change the speaker setting. At least for DD/DTS passthrough!

RDaneel

· #14 · Apr 9, 2003

I would like that too... straight passthru for DD/DTS via the software DVD player, but analog out as an option for other sounds. That way if I want the DACs in the Revo to handle sound instead of the ones in my Yamaha receiver, it would be an option. I think that Chris established that this was not possible though, with that call to tech support, right?

RDaneel

christur

Discussion Starter · #15 · Apr 9, 2003

Yes, I also got this suprisingly candid and quick response from my email inquiry:

Greetings Chris,

Although the Revolution card is capable of analog 5.1(or 7.1) or SPDIF 5.1(or 7.1), unfortunately the Revolution is not capable of outputting this simultaneously. If you have found that nForce 2 boards are capable of this, then it may be your best alternative as I'm not familiar with any other cards that can do this.

Best Regards,

Revolution Team

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Steiner83

· #16 · Apr 26, 2003

Anyone out there who has found any solution to this, i.e. quick switching between digital/analog-out?

The simplest thing would be if anybody could link the digital/analog setting to various programs, e.g. Winamp=Analog, Zoomplayer/Windvd=Digital....

Steiner83

· #17 · Apr 27, 2003

Anyone!!!!???

stlrob

· #18 · Apr 27, 2003

Mind if I ask a slightly different question of the Revolution experts? How does one get the card to pass (play) the line input all the time? The only way I have found to listen to the line input is to open the control panel and select the "monitor" check box on the line-in/mic tab. As soon as I close the control panel I loose it again. This is most anoying b/c I feed the audio from my AIW into the Revloution via line in (as instructed).

Cliff Watson

· #19 · Apr 27, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by stlrob
Mind if I ask a slightly different question of the Revolution experts? How does one get the card to pass (play) the line input all the time? The only way I have found to listen to the line input is to open the control panel and select the "monitor" check box on the line-in/mic tab. As soon as I close the control panel I loose it again. This is most anoying b/c I feed the audio from my AIW into the Revloution via line in (as instructed).

This "feature" will be fixed in the next driver release.

I'm currently testing the beta driver that no longer requires the Control Panel to be open when using Direct Monitoring. Analog input monitoring, Circle Surround II, and Sensaura are turned on/off from the system tray icon.

Don't know when the new driver will be ready for release because several new bugs were introduced with the bug fixes in this beta.

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pdermody

· #20 · Apr 27, 2003

Cliff,

Do you know if this beta driver supports ASIO via SPDIF? That is the only thing that is holding me back right now.

-pd

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