P4R800-VM s/pdif

[David Shorthouse]

Anyone get full 5.1 s/pdif out on this card with DVD movies? I can't seem to
get anything other than two channels and wonder if it might be my RCA cable.
Before I run out and buy a much more expensive digital coax instead of the
plain-Jane coax I have been using, just want some comments. I'm using nvDVD.

Dave

 

[Paul]

Anyone get full 5.1 s/pdif out on this card with DVD movies? I can't seem to
get anything other than two channels and wonder if it might be my RCA cable.
Before I run out and buy a much more expensive digital coax instead of the
plain-Jane coax I have been using, just want some comments. I'm using nvDVD.

Dave

I can tell you it is not the fault of the cable. This is digital
transmission, and is all or nothing. If you are getting two channels,
then the cable is doing its job. Something else is depriving you of
the additional channels.

The first item returned in Google for "nvdvd 5.1 spdif" suggests
the sound system has to be set up first to get 5.1 over spdif.

When I tried "soundmax 5.1 spdif" in Google, this post suggested the
Via AC97 drivers can make the AC97 send six channels over the SPDIF,
but with distortion. The implication of this is, there is some
licensing issue with the AnalogDevices driver that prevents them
from passing more channels ? It seems illogical for this to
partially work from a hardware perspective.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&[email protected]

The feature set listed in this document implies it should work:
http://www.soundmax.com/products/documentation/SoundMAX4PH_Final.pdf

There is mention of optional software upgrades for the Soundmax, but
nothing on this page looks like a solution either:
http://www.soundmax.com/products/faqs/SMAXfaq21ch6.html

The release notes on this page say:
http://www.soundmax.com/products/documentation/technotes.html

"Added driver support for S/PDIF Digital Output
Also allows the pass through of AC-3 encoded DVD audio tracks"

Try disabling "Virtual Theatre", on the off chance that it prevents
AC-3 pass through mode. (I noticed that in the Soundmax User Guide:

http://www.soundmax.com/products/documentation/SMSPXUsersGuide.pdf )

Hope that works,
Paul

 

[David Shorthouse]

Paul,

Thanks for the great post. Sounds to me like others are having the same
issue I am. No luck with disabling Virtual Theatre. I wonder then if the
sound system speaker settings have to be set to something equally illogical
like "Stereo Speakers" or "Headphones" to get 6 channel pass-through out the
s/pdif. I know nvDVD is working just fine because all dialogs suggest 5.1
sound is available on the DVD I am playing and it is set for s/pdif
pass-through. I am getting sound, so this implies the stream is being
combined to two channels between software and hardware.

Dave