ATI 5xxx series cards and bitstreaming!

My guess would be no. The card can already send LPCM down the cable for "ordinary" sound, and it can now bitstream the "HD" audio as well.
 
I have to admit that I'm really confused why anyone cares.
The graphics card in question will probably cost a whole lot more to buy than a full standalone BD player from say Panasonic. The Panny will probably have playback just as good, consume far less power, be quieter in operation and won't need regular updates to whatever PC application is needed.
The only reasons I could think of the PC card are:
1. For someone who loves BD live and finds their PC does the job better. (does anyone actually look at those extras)
2. For someone with a shed load of ripped off hi-res movies, and I'm struggling to understand why anyone can be bothered with a 10GB+ download when you can hire BDs from Tesco for all of £1 a pop and be on the right side of the moral fence.
 
What if you've got an HTPC with a BD drive and an amp that takes bitstreamed HD tracks. It just adds even more functionality to an HTPC without having to buy an expensive sound card or have another box under the telly, remote on the coffee table and cables around the back.

I like to have a decent gaming card in my HTPC anyway so it's not as if I wouldn't upgrade that at some point anyway. For those that don't game then there'll be lower end cards along soon.

If you've no interest in HTPCs then no, you wouldn't care.
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
2. For someone with a shed load of ripped off hi-res movies, and I'm struggling to understand why anyone can be bothered with a 10GB+ download when you can hire BDs from Tesco for all of £1 a pop and be on the right side of the moral fence.
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I care because all of my blu rays (all legit owned btw) are ripped to my NAS drive and then presented alongside my ripped DVDs using W7/Media Browser. All my physical media is then stored in the garage and not on shelves around the house gathering dust.

Will I buy an ATI 5xxx - nope not yet because i have a Xonar HDAV but when I setup another HTPC in another room and the prices have come down this will be a consideration.
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
I have to admit that I'm really confused why anyone cares.
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Someone has a HTPC or bluray-equipped machine, throw in a low end possibly passive ATI card for 40 quid when low end arrives shortly and he now has something that can stream happily.
Not revolutionary but a nice feature all the same.
Will be even more relevant when they make it into nice, small multimedia laptops.
 
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Mr_Sukebe said:
I have to admit that I'm really confused why anyone cares.
The graphics card in question will probably cost a whole lot more to buy than a full standalone BD player from say Panasonic. The Panny will probably have playback just as good, consume far less power, be quieter in operation and won't need regular updates to whatever PC application is needed.
The only reasons I could think of the PC card are:
1. For someone who loves BD live and finds their PC does the job better. (does anyone actually look at those extras)
2. For someone with a shed load of ripped off hi-res movies, and I'm struggling to understand why anyone can be bothered with a 10GB+ download when you can hire BDs from Tesco for all of £1 a pop and be on the right side of the moral fence.
Click to expand...

something to do with the fact that you'll no longer need a £150 sound card to do it, i guess. some people, for some barmy reason, are dead set on doing everything with the pc. and they will have gone out and spent a small fortune on a sound card for bitstream.

I'll admit, i did laugh when i read the artical. what a kick in the face lol
 
if they rlse a passive one of these which is around £70 or less then i'd get one for my HTPC just for mkv files. I use my PS3 for blu-ray playback.
 
The low end cards won't be out until Q1 next year and IGP probably later still.

To be honest this is meaningless and the only benefit is getting to see "DTS-HD" light up on your amp. You need one amazing system and an even better set of ears to hear any advantage from the higher resolution tracks.
 
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AbsenceJam said:
The low end cards won't be out until Q1 next year and IGP probably later still.

To be honest this is meaningless and the only benefit is getting to see "DTS-HD" light up on your amp. You need one amazing system and an even better set of ears to hear any advantage from the higher resolution tracks.
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Very probably as i dont envisage on seeing blu-ray rips with hd audio on the net for a very long time as the file size would be huge!
Regular 1080p mkv's with DTS/Dolby 5.1 will do for me for a long while yet.
 
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