Audio Decoding Stuff

crystalklear64

crystalklear64

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Alright, heres the deal.

I have PowerDVD7, an X-Fi Fatality Pro soundcard, and some z-5500 speakers.

I want to play back DTS/Dolby 5.1 sound.

Each of those can decode the sound, software decoding on the DVD, hardware on the speakers/card.

Question 1:
Will the DVD software automatically decode the sound and then output it as 96/24 6 channel direct simulating DTS, or does it acutally output DTS? (meaning if anyone else has the z-5500 speakers, will the console say its outputting 96/24 or DTS?)

2:
Which should I be using to do the decoding for maximum sound quality? Should it be done as soon as possible ie. the software or at the end of the chain ie. the speakers?


Athankya.
 
The speakers can do it. I think you can have PD7 output via SPDIF, which IMO is the best. Then let the speakers process it.

But... as anyone on waffles.fm and what.cd would advise: get a better sound card. Preferably one with a C-Media chip in it. The HT Omega Claro versus your card is like night and day.

Or if you can afford it, Auzentech.

You won't be having much improvement on an X-Fi... And as far as 24 bit @ 92khz goes - that's for recording, such as vinyl, or ripping DVD Audio. It's not entirely necessary unless you wanna archive some audio.

I'm not sure if I even answered your post well enough... but I have the z-5500, and I read my box and booklet. Says it can automatically do digital and DTS processing.

Have PowerDVD output in 5.1, don't let the X-Fi touch it, and let your z-5500 run in direct input, or digital. I tried the Dolby Movie thing on it and it actually removed voices from Superbad. Odd...
 
I had the same issue with the voices. In that case its only outputting 2 of the 5 channels, no center and no rear. I'm not sure what I did, but I got it working.

Now for some clarification. I don't have the optional console thing for my current card, so Coax/Optical is not an option which seems to be the most popular suggestion for quality. Without those as options and the 3 jack to 3 jack connector as my only option at the moment I have two more questions..

If I leave the z-5500 console on the standard 6 channel direct setting and set the audio in PD7 to S/PDIF the speakers should detect which audio format is being used and do the work?

Obviously I have to plug the speakers into the soundcard, but am I understanding correctly that setting the audio to S/PDIF will bypass the X-Fi decoding?

Thanks much for the help.
 
SPDIf can only be done using a coax or optical cable. If you are using the 3 jack to 3 jack setup then your speakers are hooked up as analog and the z-5500 decoder will not do any decoding. When using the S/PDIF mode the only cable connecting the sound card and the speakers will be the digital cable (be it coax or analog). In this case, the digital-to-analog conversion will be done at the speakers rather than the sound card.

What this means is that if you use spdif mode, it does not matter what sound card you have installed as the digital output will be (for all practical purposes) the same. Only if you keep your speakers in analog mode (having the sound card to the d-to-a conversion) will getting a better sound card benefit.

Ruahrc
 
If you're using Input: Direct and Effect: 6 Ch Direct, then you're only getting 5.1 via Analog. The Z-5500 can EMULATE Dolby PL2 Movie, but it can't necessarily decode anything, because this is an analog input, not digital. you'd need a card that can output optical, and an optical cable. the optical input on the Z-5500 is on the rear of the contorl box.
 
Well don't fret too much, the setup you have right now allows for dolby digital 5.1 decoding, you just have to set the software/drivers to do it rather than rely on your speaker hardware. Once you get the money, moving to the digital setup might remove some cables from your setup but there won't be too much difference.

At this level of audio equipment, it probably doesn't matter much whether or not you're using software or hardware decoding. Computers nowadays are plenty fast enough to decode the 5.1 audio stream no problem (Back in the early days PC decoded 5.1 audio streams were sometimes choppy or laggy due to lack of processing power to decode both video and audio streams simultaneously) and the quality of the components in the X-Fi is probably comparable to (or maybe even better than) what's in the hardware decoder unit. I'm a fan of hardware decoding just because I think it's nifty, but really there is not that much difference.

Ruahrc
 
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