[niietzshe]

Hey Everyone,
I've been having mega troubles trying to get both TV Shows with MP3 Stereo audio and Movies with DTS or DD Multichannel audio working (as in it was either one or the other for some reason). Finally I have got it to work through setting my system to "Analogue" which is coming up on my amp as "PCM MultiChannel HDMI".

Movies sound good and have full 5.1 audio. Just testing a TV show now (AC3) seems to be putting the stereo through to front and back speakers, but I might be able to change that in my amp.

Anyway, getting to the real question. Am I missing out by no longer getting DD/DTS passthrough and letting the amp decode it? Should I dump PCM Multichannel and try and get full DTS/DD working again?

Thanks for any input
Niietzshe

[Targettio]

Decode on the sound car and transmit as an analogue signal

-OR-

Transmit as a digital signal and decode on the amp

I am sure some self proclaimed audiophiles will start chanting about DAC quality, signal noise and the 'sound of cables'. But unless the sound card is utter trash or your are a self proclaimed audiophile then you won't notice the difference.

As for the stereo coming out the front and rear speakers on 2.0 sound, that's a common (and imo annoying) feature of AV amps. You should be able to turn it off somewhere in the settings.

[mkohman]

Right.. Sorry to Hi-Jack this thread but a quick question please..

I have a self built HTPC with intel i3 and I am using the HDMI out from my Zotac H55 motherboard straight into the Onlyo 608 Amp which is connected to my B&W Speakers.. Please see link of my setup if this helps:

http://www.blu-ray.com/community/gallery...er=mkohman

I am using XBMC and I am having to use an Optical Cable from my HTPC to my AMP for the sound to watch DTS and DD movies (.mkv blu-ray movies) . With the optical cable sound is fine but when I select the HDMI for sound and in windows 7 I select the Onkyo 608 in my sound menu option every 5-10 secs the sound cuts out? Why is this?

Should I change the setting in XBMC to analogue? With the Optical cable is it passing the signal through or is the amp decoding?

Please can you enlighten me a little on this ..

Thank you!

[niietzshe]

No idea sorry, I am running Ubuntu and don't get this problem with my Onkyo amp.

Ok I'm going to do some tests I think between a movie I have on Bluray and in 1080p DTS and see if there's noticable difference. As far as Audiophile, when it comes to my studio setup yes I'm a bit nuts, but this is all different territory. As in everything is digital, so even if it is sending PCM multichannel from my amp, it's doing so over a digital HDMI cable.

So really my question was, Am I going to see any difference in quality if decoding on the Revo and sending multiChannelPCM to the amp over sending DTS Passthrough and letting the amp decode it.

If we're thinking logically then it either gets decoded correctly and passed to the amp or not. There should be no difference in quality if the full signal is reaching the amp (which it is).

Niietzshe

[niietzshe]

If I was being anal though, I'd say it annoys me that DTS or DD logo's dont light up on my amp when it detects one of them.
But I'm not Anal... LOL! Yes I am.

[poofyhairguy]

If I was being anal though, I'd say it annoys me that DTS or DD logo's dont light up on my amp when it detects one of them.

Ok, you caught my attention with that comment. "I need to see the DTS (HD) light to feel happy" is by far my biggest pet peeve in AV-land.

Two things:

1. If you are using multichannel PCM over HDMI and it is properly decoding and sending all the channels then it is as good as DTS or AC3. Period. Like no discussion, even the biggest audiophiles in world on a blind test can't tell the difference.

2. Optical Cable can only send 2 channel PCM to make the media overlords happy. And often decent receivers can mix up a 2 channel signal to be fake surround. From what I know, unless you check "digital" signal it is sending stereo over the optical.

Only HDMi has the ability to carry proper multichannel PCM, well that and a pile of discrete input cables...

Really good question, I am impressed. Few admit that the DTS light is just for the anal!

[niietzshe]

HeHe, yeah man, it'd make me feel better if I knew for sure that it was decoding DTS and DD properly, but ohh well! Currently I have menu sounds, TV shows in Stereo and movies in full surround, so I'll leave it at that I recon...

And yeah I'm sending MultichannelPCM over HDMI otherwise the amp would just say PCM.
Niietzshe

[davidrust]

Hi, I had the same issue. I am running an Acer revo with Ubuntu 10.4 HDMI out into a Marantz SR-6004 and I couldn't get the precious DTS and Dolby Digital logos to light up. I downloaded the "Gnome Alsa Mixer" from the Ubuntu App store and used it to mute various unwanted components on the sound card and hay presto the next time I selected XBMC the sound was outputting correctly. Give it a whirl.

[mbosner]

Well you should care a little bit more about the DTS LPCM/MultiChannel because:

I am trying to save some space and reconvert the audio tracks of my stuff into aac (-q 0.55). My Denon 1910 does work well using MultiChannel 5.1 or DTS but the problem is that the denon activates some special filters once it detects a DTS or DD signal. I could not figure out if or how i can activate that filters on MultiChannel Audio. What i can do is disable all filters in pure or direct mode for DTS. After that both stream-types are identical to my ears.

If anyone of you knows how to activate those (somehow awesome) filters on my Denon for MultiChannel-Audio i would be really thankful

Martin