Kodi Community Forum

Hi - am new to the forums and am, myself, just a casual Plex user on a Hackintosh who is ready to build an HTPC for the living room (living room has a 7.1 surround sound setup with receiver and HD television). My media is self-ripped Blu-Rays in MKV format (handbrake, h264) with DTS and AC3 audio passthrough.

I want to go from my *new* HTPC -> HDMI -> Receiver -> HDMI -> TV.

My question stems from some struggles I've had with Plex and audio passthrough over HDMI ... what do I need to know to make sure I get the right hardware and software that will allow me to send the audio over HDMI without fooling with it first? Right now, I've been keeping the DTS and AC3 streams but I would rather save the HD audio if I could and still pass it along.

- Can anyone point me in the right direction?
- Am I limited to Windows only? (I havent had a Win machine since 2002 - only Linux and Mac!).

If I had a preference, I would like my HTPC build to be compatible with a Hackintosh setup (in the event that I repurpose it later) - I know this will make it more expensive because I will be limited to Intel. For example, this recent suggested build. Also, if I had my preference, I would rather run Linux but not if its not going to work smoothly (my wife and kids need to use this, not just me).

Thanks for your advice.

This very small PC "Lenovo H520s Desktop Computer" should be ready for XBMC out of the box. You should be able to bitstream HD audio using XBMC with ease. You can check out this thread for more info- Windows How to Bitstreaming using XBMC.........

Stick with Nvidia graphics if you want bitstreaming HD audio formats with a linux OS.

There's not much else to it.

(2012-10-14, 01:59)bluray Wrote: [ -> ]This very small PC "Lenovo H520s Desktop Computer" should be ready for XBMC out of the box. You should be able to bitstream HD audio using XBMC with ease. You can check out this thread for more info- Windows How to Bitstreaming using XBMC.........

Thanks for that suggested hardware; however, according to Lenovo's site, it only does 5.1 audio (unfortunately). I think I will probably be building my own anyway (even if it ends up being more expensive, smile).

(2012-10-14, 02:56)lrusak Wrote: [ -> ]Stick with Nvidia graphics if you want bitstreaming HD audio formats with a linux OS.

There's not much else to it.

I like your confidence level! I would prefer Linux, but in the end, the system needs to work in a way that my wife and kids don't even realize they are dealing with a computer. Smile.

It seems from my reading that Windows folks like the AMD/ATI route (maybe good price/performance), while Linux folks would need to stick with NVIDIA. The hunt continues.

All modern CPUs and video cards with HDMI will (if the software supports it) bitstream HD audio over HDMI.

The custoMac builds you linked to definitely will. I've always thought that Bitfenix Prodigy case looks like the Mac Pro.



I'd look into OpenELEC if you want this to behave more like an appliance for the wife/kids. There are builds that support bitstreaming. Otherwise, it's very easy to do in Windows.