Xonar DX Help

[L0stpr0phet]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some help setting up my recently purchased Asus Xonar DX 7.1 Soundcard.

Equipment in use:
HTPC running Windows 7 with XBMC as primary program for playing all movies etc.
Panasonic 5.1 Home Cinema System connected to pc via Optical (unit can only decode DD not DTS via the optical)

I have everything connected up and getting sound from all speakers but i could do with a few pointers as to the correct settings for using Dolby Digital Live. I stumbled across the following page which makes me wonder if i am recieving proper DD from sources which already contain DD. http://www.mce-pro.co.uk/articles/asus-xonar-dx-and-the-dolby-digital-dilemma-our-solution/

I basically want everything to be passed to my panasonic system as DD as it cant decode DTS, sources are mainly MKV rips of blu-rays which i guess are a mixture of DTS or DD AC3 5.1

There is also settings in XBMC to set audio device to analog or digital....its all rather confusing!

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Thorburn]

The linked article is mine. From my testing I'd imagine you have the Output Device set to analogue speaker, so you'll be decoding from the source audio then re-encoding to Dolby Digital.

Since your receiver doesn't support DTS this is what you'll want it to be doing for DTS content, so leave the output in Windows Sound's Output Devices set to analogue - if you set it to SPDIF the audio will be decoded and sent as 2-channel uncompressed PCM.

For Dolby Digital encoded content, to send it directly to the receiver you'll want the Window Sound Output Device set to the SPDIF, otherwise it'll be decoded, passed over to the ASUS drivers, and then re-encoded using Dolby Digital Live. Whether you'll be able to tell the difference is debatable however.

I've also found some of the codec packs for Windows Vista that people install can cause issues with bit-streaming of audio over SPDIF, since Windows 7 improves greatly over Vista in terms of codec support I simply use Windows Media Player 12 and the Haali Media Splitter for MKV support. If you are decoding DTS you may need additional codecs however, but I'm fairly sure my second system does it without issue. If not I think FFDShow includes libDTS.

 

[L0stpr0phet]

Brilliant! Thanks very much Thorburn, i've got it setup how you recommend and now DTS is being re-encoded to DD5.1 just great

I've tried the content already in DD thru spdif and then through the Dolby Digital Live and i have to say i cant really tell the difference so i'll keep everything going to the "analog" device to save swapping settings around or using your tool.

Thanks for the help much appreciated