R600's secret weapon revealed

[Yousuf Khan]

Well, it is coming from the Inquirer, so take with a grain of salt. It
doesn't sound implausible though.

R600's secret weapon revealed
"In any case, R600 will be compliant with the Vista requirements and can
send sound directly over a HDCP/HDMI link. We are told this is a full HD
sound setup, not a cheesy 2.1 channel thing."
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38714

 

[Oliver Nowak]

Yousuf Khan hat uns dieses gebracht :

Well, it is coming from the Inquirer, so take with a grain of salt. It
doesn't sound implausible though.

R600's secret weapon revealed
"In any case, R600 will be compliant with the Vista requirements and can send
sound directly over a HDCP/HDMI link. We are told this is a full HD sound
setup, not a cheesy 2.1 channel thing."
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38714

That has been pretty much confirmed by an AMD rep earlier. See here
(close to the end of the interview):

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=573129

Quote >>>>>>>>>>>>
PCGH: Rick told us on the press conference that you had HD-Audio and
HDMI integrated into the RV6x. Is that true for all R6x-products from
top to bottom?

Vijay Sharma: Yes.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< unquote

 

[Yousuf Khan]

That has been pretty much confirmed by an AMD rep earlier. See here
(close to the end of the interview):

Quote >>>>>>>>>>>>
PCGH: Rick told us on the press conference that you had HD-Audio and
HDMI integrated into the RV6x. Is that true for all R6x-products from
top to bottom?

Vijay Sharma: Yes.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< unquote

Interesting, I read that interview before, but I missed that. So I
wonder how Creative Labs is feeling now?

Yousuf Khan

 

[nobody]

Well, it is coming from the Inquirer, so take with a grain of salt. It
doesn't sound implausible though.

R600's secret weapon revealed
"In any case, R600 will be compliant with the Vista requirements and can
send sound directly over a HDCP/HDMI link. We are told this is a full HD
sound setup, not a cheesy 2.1 channel thing."
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38714

DRM suxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I just hope it would not take much time before a crack appears
somewhere around the Internet. Something like a driver patch or
whatever...

NNN

 

[Tony Hill]

Interesting, I read that interview before, but I missed that. So I
wonder how Creative Labs is feeling now?

I *highly* doubt that this will have any effect at all on Creative
Labs' sales, or at the very least the effect it might have will be
totally negligible compared to the having virtually every single
motherboard with HD-Audio built in (as we have now).

Note that this audio is unlikely to be much more than a Realtek or ADI
codec chip.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I *highly* doubt that this will have any effect at all on Creative
Labs' sales, or at the very least the effect it might have will be
totally negligible compared to the having virtually every single
motherboard with HD-Audio built in (as we have now).

Note that this audio is unlikely to be much more than a Realtek or ADI
codec chip.

I think it's a bit more problematic for Creative than that. Until now,
Creative has been taking refuge, by selling to gamers and power users,
who still buy add-on sound cards thinking that they are superior in
quality to built-in audio. These are the same people who buy high-end
video cards. If they buy a high-end video card now, will they still feel
a need to buy a separate audio card if it's already built into their
high-end video card? They'll probably feel that a high-quality video
would also come included with a high-quality sound.

Also if any of these gamers/power users decide to connect their
computers through the HDMI outputs to a HDTV set, then they may not have
any choice but to use the sound that comes through their video card.
Since the HDMI plug integrates the video and the audio outputs together,
there's no way to connect that between separate sound and video cards,
it all has to come through the one card.

Also the this new sound/video device has to be able to send Dolby
Digital-encoded multi-directional sound, through an S/PDIF output
integrated into the HDMI plug. I don't think there are any Realtek or
ADI sound chips that can send digital sound through an S/PDIF connector.
At one time, one of the reasons for buying after market sound cards was
for the ability to output through digital links to a home theater system
-- that market is now threatened.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

DRM suxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I just hope it would not take much time before a crack appears
somewhere around the Internet. Something like a driver patch or
whatever...

Yeah, it does, but in the meantime, an interesting piece of hardware has
come out of it. You can still install this card into a non-DRM infected
XP system, and use its full functionality, minus the DRM aspects.

Yousuf Khan

 

[The little lost angel]

I think it's a bit more problematic for Creative than that. Until now,

My opinion is similar to Tony's because sound cards has not been
Creative's main revenue source for quite a while. The percentage sound
card made up for sales were 13%, 13%, 10%, 10% for the past 4
quarters. I wouldn't be surprised to see 8% for the next.

So whatever impact integrated audio on gfx cards would have isn't
going to be noticeable against the steady decline of sound card sales.

 

[Evgenij Barsukov]

Well, it is coming from the Inquirer, so take with a grain of salt. It
doesn't sound implausible though.

R600's secret weapon revealed
"In any case, R600 will be compliant with the Vista requirements and can
send sound directly over a HDCP/HDMI link. We are told this is a full HD
sound setup, not a cheesy 2.1 channel thing."
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38714

Who cares about sound sent over HDMI. I have never seen a 5.1 sound-system that even
has an HDMI input. Are they envisioning that people are going to play the 5.1 HD
sound on their TVs lamentable 2-channel sound-system?

Regards,
Yevgen

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Who cares about sound sent over HDMI. I have never seen a 5.1
sound-system that even
has an HDMI input. Are they envisioning that people are going to play
the 5.1 HD
sound on their TVs lamentable 2-channel sound-system?

I don't know, do these tv's have a pass-through from their internal
sound to an external system?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tony Hill]

Who cares about sound sent over HDMI. I have never seen a 5.1 sound-system that even
has an HDMI input. Are they envisioning that people are going to play the 5.1 HD
sound on their TVs lamentable 2-channel sound-system?

The idea is to pass the sound through the TV to the surround system.
The main idea is to reduce cabling. You have one cable running from
each of your A/V devices (DVD, digital cable, whatever else) to the TV
and then another cable running from your TV to your sound system.

Long story short, it's not exactly a big help for much of anything,
especially for high-end sound systems that are already using digital
audio cables.

 

[Nate Edel]

I don't know, do these tv's have a pass-through from their internal
sound to an external system?

I've not seen a digital pass through, or a 5.1 analog - most TVs I've owned
have had a 2-channel analog out, but the best you are going to get through
that (assuming the TV doesn't post-process it too much) is Dolby Pro Logic.