Ideal PCI/e card for S/PDIF-in DD or DTS decode?

jalyst

jalyst

jalyst

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Uriel or others that know a fair bit about this area, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Looking for models that are readily purchasable, & with good support in Windows 7.
Solid Linux support would be ideal to, at least for S/PDIF-in.

Ideally it'd be relatively cheap, as this is all I want the card for!
I will re-route it's decoded stream to another card for DAC (where possible).

I already have a dedicated device for DD/DTS decode, it's mainly for experimentation.
Thank-you.
 
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These look like they should, not 100% sure about the last two though.
I would prefer brands other than Creative, if people know of others.

Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=874&product=14064&listby=system

Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=874&product=17927&listby=system

Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro
http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=874&product=17791&listby=system

Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=874&product=17813&listby=system

Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
http://au.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=874&product=15853&listby=system
E-MU 1010 PCIe
http://us.store.creative.com/EMU-1010-PCIe/M/B002OB1NKY.htm
 
Thank-you Uriel for getting back to me,

I know about that thread, but I'm not inclined to take it as gospel just yet.
So you've never tried this on a card before, or even on older ones in XP?

**hmm this forum doesn't have PM's, hopefully you're subscribed**
 
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No - I've not tried it for a long time. I did have a go with an original Xbox and an audigy 2 but that was a long time ago (and I never got it working). I was intending on trying it as a means of using an X-Fi for CMSS-3D with Xonar for Dolby Headphone in the same machine but ran into other compatibility problems before I got around to it.

All I've seen recently is threads on forums with people complaining on forums that they can't get it working with other cards.

One device that might work is the Creative Extigy. It's a USB soundcard that also functions as a standalone Dolby Decoder. It's been discontinued for years though and I have no idea what the state of drivers in Vista or 7 is. I don't think Creative ever produced AlChemy for it so a lot of older games would be restricted to stereo / software sound mode.

Sorry - as a rule I don't subscribe to threads on any forum. My inbox gets full enough as it is. I do keep an eye on the sound forum here regularly though.
 
So you're pretty sure that none of those recent creative cards I listed will work?
I'd rather use a more recent model if I can, as it's more likely to have better support etc.
I'll try hydrogen-audio and doom9 forums too, thank-you very much for your input.
Any further thoughts greatly appreciated....

All the best.
 
I've heard rumours that the Elite Pro may work - and possibly only in Windows XP, not Vista or 7. Only a forum post though so unconfirmed.
 
But surely the ones that don't rely on hw decode (apparently they removed hw after the 1st elite pro) but do it in PowerDVD should work in Win7 now?!

WTF are Creative doing offering a feature for several cards, but not having it work in Win7!? Sigh...
 
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I've only ever used PowerDVD for decoding media played on the PC - never for external stuff. Has it ever been possible to use it to decode spdif in?

AFAIK, many of the Creative cards that support DD decoding still decode media played on the PC in W7. They certainly do in Vista, although the drivers arrived rather late.
 
Because you can use a standard pcm stereo in via spdif. Very useful for connecting a digital mixer to a soundcard for example. Spdif is stereo as standard. Dolby digital is a type of signal that can be carried by spdif.
 
Assuming my on-board (ALC889) or these cards are not usable for actual decode (YTBD), & are only useful for capturing standard stereo PCM for the purpose of using with a digital mixer etc.

Then if I understand this correctly, users have gone some way towards redirecting a captured DD/DTS stream to another device (AC3filter) for actual decoding.
Perhaps then the same process could be used to redirect the decoded DD/DTS to a HRTF filter in AC3Filter, assuming it has one?

Or perhaps another approach would be to redirect the decoded stream to my Essence ST to do; DH encode, and the DAC?
I suspect this may be trickier though....
 
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It may be worth getting in touch with ROBSCIX on head - fi's forums. He writes for Guru3D too.

A while ago he told me about some work he and colleagues had been doing regarding having two soundcards in the same system. One would 'create' multi channel digital audio. The other would do the digital to analogue conversion. The application was mainly getting X-Fi cards to do the legwork for gaming audio and using more 'audiophile' type cards to 'render' the audio for use with speakers or headphones. I think it used a different technique to Dolby endoding / decoding to pass the audio between devices.

He claimed that it was working well. Might be worth looking into.
 
Yeah I recall this...
I suspect this would be more to do with someone playing games on their PC.
Not capturing from Xbox360/PS3, but thanks for the reminder!

I have actually mentioned my plans to him in the past and he's not been too sure.
Any thoughts on my post in that thread, have you heard of others pulling this or similar off?
 
jalyst said:
Assuming my on-board (ALC889) or these cards are not usable for actual decode (YTBD), & are only useful for capturing standard stereo PCM for the purpose of using with a digital mixer etc.

Then if I understand this correctly, users have gone some way towards redirecting a captured DD/DTS stream to another device (AC3filter) for actual decoding.
Perhaps then the same process could be used to redirect the decoded DD/DTS to a HRTF filter in AC3Filter, assuming it has one?

Or perhaps another approach would be to redirect the decoded stream to my Essence ST to do; DH encode, and the DAC?
I suspect this may be trickier though....
Click to expand...

Actually I don't think my motherboard has a S/PDIF-in header, so even if it's possible I wouldn't be able to use my ALC889.
Unless Asus sells after-market add-ons for their mobo's which allows one to add a S/PDIF-in header? (doubt it)

So I'll prolly have to use a discrete card, still....
If you think those cards I linked to might be usable for DD/DTS capture + decode, or just capture.
Or you think re-direction to 3rd party apps or cards sound feasible, let me know.

Thank-you.
 
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I know you're experimenting but wouldn't a receiver be a better solution?

I'm thinking Harmon Kardon AVR155 or a higher model. It'll decode Dolby Digital and DTS via spdif. You can plug in your 6 or 8 analogue channels for a PC soundcard. It encodes Dolby Headphone. I bet it will be more user friendly than trying to get the setup working on a PC too.
 
Oh I will (the one you're suggesting sounds ideal actually), I just want to play in the interim.
Some of the cards that sound ideal shouldn't cost much, so it's no big loss if nothing pans out.

I actually re-edited post #14 so you may need to re-read, let me know, thanks/night!
 
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