Which would de-code Dolby 'better' ?

Man of Honour
Joined
16 Mar 2005
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Clevedon , Bristol
Bit of advice from the experts please.

I have an X-Fi extremegamer fatality Pro card and Logitech Z-680 speakers.

I need to pay $5 to 'unlock/license' Dolby/DTS output from the card, no biggie cost wise.

But my Z680s' have a Dolby/DTS decoder.

So;

Would the card do a better job of handling Dolby/DTS and then optical out to the speakers ?

or

Analogue out from the card and use the Logitech to de-code?

Is the card actually capable of sending a Dolby signal without the $5 activation ?

The software tells me that it has been enabled ( according to screenshots i've seen to compare ), but the activation is still blank as i haven't paid for it ?

Cheers :)
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Nov 2007
Posts
4,184
The $5 is for Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect, these encode everything as AC3 or DTS so you can get 5.1 sound from games via S/PDIF. You can still pass AC3/DTS tracks from films and games that have them to your speakers without paying. Or you could use the analogue outputs of your soundcard to the speakers, I think the DACS on your card would be better than those on the speakers.
 
Associate
Joined
2 Apr 2007
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Location
Whitley Bay
Actually , this is related to a question i have been meaning to ask, if i currently have my soudn card setup as analogue through the three sound jacks, how do i decode DTS/HD, is it done automatically via analogue with no worries?
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Nov 2007
Posts
4,184
Actually , this is related to a question i have been meaning to ask, if i currently have my soudn card setup as analogue through the three sound jacks, how do i decode DTS/HD, is it done automatically via analogue with no worries?

The DTS decoder in the program you use decodes it and then passes it to your sound card as PCM which your soundcards then converts to an analogue signal. Same as with DTS or AC3 normally. :) When you use S/PDIF (optical or coax) the track isn't decoded, just passed through.
With DTS-HD you can get higher resolution tracks, for these you need hardware which support it (Xonar HDAV, latest ATi cards and one of the Auzentechs) and then HDMI to an amp that supports this format.
 
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