PC HD-DVD/BluRay audio

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Hi,

Just picked up a LG GGW-H10N Blu-ray Disc Rewriter & HD DVD-ROM Drive. Somewhat expensive :o

Anyway, that asside, I have ripped my massive personal HD collection (all of 3 at the moment) and have no problems playing it through my media pc to the tv at 1080p over hdmi using PowerDVD Ultra. The sound going over spdif.

Now, for the experts out there. How do I go about getting the sound out via a graphics card that is supposedly HDCP/HDMI ready? The graphics card in question is a silent MSI 8600gts (NX8600GTS-T2D256EZ-HD). As far as I understand it Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus for example wont go via spdif (lack of bandwidth) and only go out via a hdmi 1.3 connection, so somehow need to get the audio through the dvi socket?

Is this even possible at present on a pc? Do I need to change motherboards for a hdmi/hdcp socket. Do I need to change gfx cards? Do I need to forget about it?

Yes, I am slightly confused by all this.

Cheers,

Richie.
 
Well I just found this on the MSI site, so might have answered my own question.

HDMI with Audio Integration Solution (Optional)
The NVIDIA® GeForce® 8 Series graphics card supports HDMI with audio integration solution. With a DVI-to-HDMI adapter and an extra signal cord through the bracket, audio source from sound card(S/PDIF) can be integrated into HDMI interface by simply plugging the cord into the pinhead located on graphics card. Only 1 single HDMI cable is required while streaming audio/video data to flat-panel display devices, such as Plasma/LCD TVs, or projector.

Now can a dolby trueHD etc signal go down spdif? From the above info it seems that it is all that can be connected to the gfx card. Not even sure where this would plug on or what cable would be needed... hmmm

Richie.
 
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AFAIK ATM we can't get HD audio from a PC, we can get the lossless PCM via analogue outputs however.

What the MSI site says is correct, however it WONT be HD audio, just your bog standard sound, which could be sent via SPDIF, it simply links that to your HDMI cable.

Someone will soon be releasing the gear for full blown HD video and audio via a single HDMI cable though, im sure. Thats what im waiting for at least :o
 
I heard a rumour that the most recent generation of ATI cards have got a sound "card" built into the gpu for this very reason (2900 series I think) however Im not sure yet whether they have hdmi as default yet (I personally wouldnt trust a dvi to hdmi converter with audio)

I havent really looked into it however
 
Thanks for the info folks.

Anyone know what the ati hd 2600/2900 xt's can do? According to ati they can do 5.1 over hdmi. Now will these support the higher next gen bitrate audio formats or is it sill just essentially an onboard sound chip/whatever that pumps spdif down hdmi similar to the nvidia bodge?

Richie.
 
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