TrueHD, how with HTPCs ?

RavenZero said:
From the AVSForum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=892863

PowerDVD Ultra downsamples EVERYTHING. This has been proven and admitted to by Cyberlink Support and Corporate. Even if you are hearing a "difference," there is currently no way to hear unmolested HD audio coming from an HTPC through analog connections or SPDIF (optical OR coaxial) at this time. It has been reported that some of the newer Intel motherboards with built in HDMI solutions may be able to play the full-rate HD audio tracks through PowerDVD. That's it. This has been discussed and tested ad-infinitum on other sites already by very experienced audiophiles, tech company employees and hardware testers.

If there is any new information, AVS might be a good place to start looking for it. I haven't seen, or heard, anything at all to convince me otherwise. I'm SlackerX over on that forum. I was one fo the first people to actually bring this issue up over there and, at first, people thought I was nuts. It wasn't until later that people started to realize what was going on and started bugging Cyberlink about their PowerDVD product. Make no mistake. They have indeed admitted to the downsampling issue. If things have changed in the last few days, please let us know. Many poeple would like it to actually work as it was at first advertised (and, unfortunately, still is to my knowledge).

Edit:

Unfortunately, the only real way to convince yourself of the truth currently is to go out and get an HD DVD or Blu-Ray stand alone player that either decodes and then sends the audio for you over HDMI, SPDIF or analog to your receiver, or sends the full bit-rate unmolested out over HDMI to a receiver that can decode it. I can amlost gaurantee a more palpable difference in that scenario to compare directly against even an HTPC with a high-end sound card...
Click to expand...

zzzz
 
And that, along with the disabling of hard drive media playback in the latest version of powerdvd, is the reason that arcsoft's total media extreme will rock! Anybody have any experience with arcsoft's Japanese trial?
 
From every indication I see and hear, what those people say isn't holding up. The live sample rate for the output shows 96kHz for TrueHD, and there is quite a distinct quality difference during action scenes were there are many different noises at once. You also said for me to try hearing the difference from a standalone unit. I have listened to my friend's hooked up to his Onkyo 805 with Polk speakers. It sounded the same as what I'm hearing. I don't have golden ears like some people do though.

Screens to show what I'm seeing:
(sorry about the pictures, but I couldn't get screenshots because PowerDVD doesn't allow you to take one while a HD DVD is playing.

DD+ 5.1 @ 48kHz
IMG_3937.jpg


DD TrueHD 5.1 @ 96kHz
IMG_3935.jpg
 
These screenshots show what Cyberlink detects as the properties of the track that is playing. You are not seeing what is actually coming from your sound card.

Cyberlink has stated that the downsampling happens before it is even sent to your audio driver in order to protect digital content. They didn't say that they wouldn't report basic track information within the player. As stated in the PowerDVD screens you've provided yourself, all that's being shown here are the Audio Attributes of the file being played.
 
RavenZero said:
These screenshots show what Cyberlink detects as the properties of the track that is playing. You are not seeing what is actually coming from your sound card.

Cyberlink has stated that the downsampling happens before it is even sent to your audio driver in order to protect digital content. They didn't say that they wouldn't report basic track information within the player. As stated in the PowerDVD screens you've provided yourself, all that's being shown here are the Audio Attributes of the file being played.
Click to expand...

While I have no proof one way or another if this is actually the case, many claim that they hear a noticeable difference between DD+ and TrueHD. I do not doubt this because it's possible that a downsampled lossless track is still better than a non-downsampled lossy track.
 
PCMusicGuy said:
While I have no proof one way or another if this is actually the case, many claim that they hear a noticeable difference between DD+ and TrueHD. I do not doubt this because it's possible that a downsampled lossless track is still better than a non-downsampled lossy track.
Click to expand...

I agree.
 
One thing I'll make clear here is that I want to make as many people aware of this issue, and the sad state of HDMI and lossless, HD audio integration into the current PC environment, as possible. I'm hoping that the more people are aware, the more there'll be out there who will clamor for change and vote with their wallets.

Change for the better is my main goal!
 
So is there actually any proof so we can test if this is actually downsampled or not? Because every single indication I'm hearing and seeing says otherwise. What utility could I use to test the sample rate out of the program?
 
w1retap said:
You don't need a 7.1 reciever for TrueHD. Every movie I know of that is out right now on HD DVD is only 5.1 TrueHD at the most.. for the moment. PowerDVD Ultra only has 5.1 output enabled right now, but when movies encoded with 7.1 channels become available, we should see a software update.

But the receiver I went with is the Onkyo TX-SR605. For the money you can't really beat it. 7.1, 2x1 HDMI switcher, plenty of inputs, and overall it is a pretty powerful receiver. I've had no problem with finding enough volume out of it. :p
Click to expand...

Cool :D At least I won't be worried for now ;)
 
w1retap said:
You can still playback HD DVD off the hard drive. Just mount your rip as an ISO and it works fine.

But why are you so angry powerhouse? Take a seat man. It isn't the end of the world if you are being skeptical of things.

No current soundcard can pass TrueHD natively to be decoded by the receiver. Current soundcards can however output analog with TrueHD decoded by PowerDVD. 24-bit/96kHz to all 8 channels.
Click to expand...

you can also use my movies for windows media player, it will play hd dvd rips from the hdd through the latest version of power dvd
 
I believe that PowerDVD does downsample the audio, why? because cyberlink is just fucking evil and might as well be owned by AACS. Removing HD playback is just shooting yourself in the foot. It takes is an extra 20-30mins and create and iso from the ripped movie folders, it still would be nice not having to do this.

Shuttle SN68PTG5
Athlon 64 X2 5200+/2.6Ghz AM2
1GB DD2
8500GT 512MB
ATI HDTV Wonder
300GB
Analog 5.1 out to Z-5500
Westinghouse 37" 1080p
 
You can strip the AACS protection from the movie using AnyDVD-HD, thus there is no more protection flags to tell PowerDVD to downsample, even if it did in the first place. ;)
 
If you're using AnyDVD-HD to strip the movie down and store the movie/sound on your H Disk, you dont need PowerDVD anymore at all, correct? :p

I'm planning on a 4TB setup with all my favorite movies and tv shows "backup" copied onto the array to avoid wearing out or scratching my disks.

So once an HDdvd/BR has had the bullshit plucked, regular old MediaCenter should be able to play it back, correct?

You'd think at least the ATI cards with built in audio/HDMI would be allowed to do complete TrueHD decode since it's all on the card, and goes out HDMI under HDCP, so it wouldn't be "exposed" at an unencrypted point.

The industry is dropping the ball here, the consumer once forced to find alternatives will stick with them, and the industry can go suck an egg. :eek::p:D
 
Well, you still need PowerDVD to playback the movie. AnyDVD-HD works if you want to rip the movie to the hard disk stripping the encryption, or it does it in real time from the native disk as you play the movie. However you don't need PowerDVD if you reencode the movie to something like x264 or WMVHD. Then you have the option to converting the TrueHD track to FLAC.

But yeah, it is sad that we can't even get a good HDMI audio+video alternative here. As of right now all the PC HDMI audio interfaces are just SPDIF routed through HDMI.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
If you're using AnyDVD-HD to strip the movie down and store the movie/sound on your H Disk, you dont need PowerDVD anymore at all, correct? :p

I'm planning on a 4TB setup with all my favorite movies and tv shows "backup" copied onto the array to avoid wearing out or scratching my disks.

So once an HDdvd/BR has had the bullshit plucked, regular old MediaCenter should be able to play it back, correct?

You'd think at least the ATI cards with built in audio/HDMI would be allowed to do complete TrueHD decode since it's all on the card, and goes out HDMI under HDCP, so it wouldn't be "exposed" at an unencrypted point.

The industry is dropping the ball here, the consumer once forced to find alternatives will stick with them, and the industry can go suck an egg. :eek::p:D
Click to expand...

On average HD rips are 20-25GB. So 4TB will get you around 160 movies.

Also, if you have the right codecs installed, you can get other players to playback the raw video files from the HD discs. But of course you loose everything else. No nice menus, no PiP video, no subtitles, no HD audio.
 
This thread confused the heck out of me.

Anyway, would appreciate it if someone could explain, in simple terms, what was the conclusion and what is the recommendation for someone trying to get the best sound out of an HTPC that will play Blu Ray and be connected to an Onkyo receiver and 5.1 sound system?
 
The Creative Theater Cables (analog) will get the best sound, assuming you have a good quality sound card like an X-Fi.
 
w1retap said:
The Creative Theater Cables (analog) will get the best sound, assuming you have a good quality sound card like an X-Fi.
Click to expand...

A lot of people are touting the benefits of getting a DVD player with HDMI connections so I'm surprised that the conclusion was to go with analogue connections.
 
echn111 said:
A lot of people are touting the benefits of getting a DVD player with HDMI connections so I'm surprised that the conclusion was to go with analogue connections.
Click to expand...
1.) We're not talking about a "DVD player" so that hardly makes any difference.

2.) HDMI audio, on the PC, is simply SPDIF out rerouted through the video card and, hence, it doesn't do TrueHD audio decoding since SPDIF doesn't have enough bandwidth to pass it along. HDMI on the PC has no benefit if you're going with HDDVD/BR content.

3.) The only way to get TrueHD decoding is by using a sound card capable of decoding high quality audio which is why everyone mentions getting an Xfi XtremeGamer for this. Also, you'll need to go analog out because you need the card to decode the audio signal and we've already established that SPDIF out couldn't handle it.
 
Ok - I'm convinced - definitely getting a sound card. Any difference between the X-Fi XtremeGamer and X-Fi XtremeMusic? (I can get the latter card slightly cheaper)

Also, what are the best cables to use to connect it to an Onkyo receiver? Do the "Creative Theater Cables" (?) come with the X-Fi?
 
I'm using the XtremeMusic and Creative Theater Cables with my HTPC for HD DVD's and it sounds incredible.

Cables:
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=14309

As far as differences between the XtremeGamer and XtremeMusic, I don't think you'll hear or notice any. The XtremeMusic just supports more inputs/outputs through the special I/O box that you have to buy optionally. The XtremeMusic is also easier to mod in terms of OpAmps and things like that.
 
w1retap said:
I'm using the XtremeMusic and Creative Theater Cables with my HTPC for HD DVD's and it sounds incredible.

Cables:
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=14309

As far as differences between the XtremeGamer and XtremeMusic, I don't think you'll hear or notice any. The XtremeMusic just supports more inputs/outputs through the special I/O box that you have to buy optionally. The XtremeMusic is also easier to mod in terms of OpAmps and things like that.
Click to expand...
So you're using the XtremeMusic? The on caveat that I would beware is that the XtremeMusic is just a rebranded Audigy SE series card so it's not really able to properly handle TrueHD due to the XM's lower specs which puts it about on par with many (good) onboard audio solutions (or something like that, it's been a while since I've bothered looking at this issue). But I suppose if it works for you then this might be the only reason to even look at the XtremeMusic cards.
 
Oh, thats right. They replaced the XtremeMusic with the XtremeGamer and then released the craptastic XtremeAudio.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top