[vulcan4d]

My motherboard supports 7.1 channels of audio. I have my coaxial out connected to my surround sound receiver. In all the 2 years I have had this motherboard I could NEVER, and I mean NEVER output surround sound in ANY movies, games etc. Later I found out its all because I don't have dolby digital support within my audio chipset.

Well I go ahead and try out XBMC for windows and to my surprise, BAM full dolby digital or DTS output recognised on my surround sound receiver. How How How How is this possible and why can't I have it through other windows applications like powerdvd, media player or even games? I'm really puzzled, in all the time I couldn't get it working and here comes XBMC and poof complete surprise .

[pre1014]

The computer outputs the audio bitstream and your receiver does the decoding. I'm sure its possible with the hardware you have without xbmc....but it would be a question you would want to ask of the hardware/software vendors.

Im sure VLC will output audio correctly as well...
http://www.videolan.org/
and if the audio stutters
http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=31776

If you want surround sound in (pick media player here) i would suggest going to their support forum. Games are a much different story however and are why I use consoles for gaming. Edit: for games you would want a dolby digital live audio card.....

[linesma]

My motherboard supports 7.1 channels of audio. I have my coaxial out connected to my surround sound receiver. In all the 2 years I have had this motherboard I could NEVER, and I mean NEVER output surround sound in ANY movies, games etc. Later I found out its all because I don't have dolby digital support within my audio chipset.

Well I go ahead and try out XBMC for windows and to my surprise, BAM full dolby digital or DTS output recognised on my surround sound receiver. How How How How is this possible and why can't I have it through other windows applications like powerdvd, media player or even games? I'm really puzzled, in all the time I couldn't get it working and here comes XBMC and poof complete surprise .

For most motherboards, the onboard sound solution supports 7.1 audio output from the analog connections only. That is because most of these "sound cards" are analog, even though they have a coaxial or optical digital output. To get the Dolby Digital Surround (or DTS for that matter), the motherboard relies on the playback program to create a "virtual surround" signal that will output through your digital connection. This then can be decoded by your receiver.

If you want a true digital solution for your sound, you will need to upgrade to a discrete sound card. Right now, the best sound card that is supported by Windows 7 is the Asus Xonar series. They run anywhere from $100-$250 depending on the model you choose. By upgrading to one of these, you will get the surround output all the time.

I hope this helps,

Mark