What's up with the new HDMI out on Videocards?

I

InCogneato

[H]ard|Gawd
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I've been waiting for cards with HDMI to come out for a long time! Finally they are here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261002&CMP=AFC-C8Junction

But I'm wondering about how the audio is taken care of. Do we depend on the Video card manufacturer for audio drivers and such? What if I wanted to use my MoBos sound instead? Does this use up GPU performance that could otherwise be used for a better gaming experience?

All info and details would be appreciated. I'm excited about this step forward in computers.
 
I don't think you can get sound from the Palit card. The ATI 2000 and 3000 series have audio built into the card, so you use the video card as your audio output as well. Some of the other hdmi video cards have a spdif header and you plug into it from your audio card or motherboard.
 
Yeah, I was wondering that, but I'm thinking it's just like a DVI to HDMI adapter built in. I'm guessing it has no audio...unless there's some kind of pass-thru from your video card to your sound. If so - that's pretty cool if it works well. I know that to get decent 5.1 sound in anything except movies with an X-Fi, you have to use the card's multi-out cables.
I've pretty much just been using a DVI cable with HDMI male adapter to hook-up my 8800GTX to my TV. No real issues doing that.
 
the audio out on the ATI cards is pretty good, and i have looked and you are only able to disable the onboard sound on the ati cards.
 
The little white connector next to the SLI connector on the Palit shown, is the SPDIF/HDMI passthru connector. You run a cable from the internal SPDIF connector on your MB/soundcard and it is worked into the HDMI signal along with the video.
 
the 9800 GX2's have it over near the power connectors, its essentially an internal optical connector, that passes the audio through the card and into the hdmi ouput...
 
Hmmm...is there any way to get 5.1 PCM audio from a PC then? Err...at least with a non-professional sound card. That's really the whole thing about HDMI (other than it being all-in-one). Can you get lossless 5.1 or 7.1 from any normal PC sound cards?
 
what do you define as normal?

almost all new motherboards come with at least 5.1, but sometimes 7.1 channel sound built in...
 
soundguy said:
what do you define as normal?

almost all new motherboards come with at least 5.1, but sometimes 7.1 channel sound built in...
Click to expand...

I don't mean standard Dolby/DTS 5.1/7.1 or even multi-speaker EAX.
I'm looking for lossless 5.1 or 7.1 sound such as PCM 5.1/7.1 or DolbyHD and DTS-HD codecs that can be found on Blu-Ray disks.
One of the real advantages of HDMI is the ability to transfer the lossless audio codecs for movies due to the extra bandwidth. Even a TOSLINK cable can't handle those, and they'll just downmix to normal PCM 2.1 or Dolby Digital.
I was wondering if a normal consumer card could output those lossless codecs to a receiver that could decode them...much like the PS3 can.
Without the better audio, a Blu-Ray is just a higher-resolution DVD. The lossless audio's half of the advantage.
If there's a pass through from an audio card to an HDMI video card...will any (consumer-level) audio cards support those codecs?
 
Domingo said:
I don't mean standard Dolby/DTS 5.1/7.1 or even multi-speaker EAX.
I'm looking for lossless 5.1 or 7.1 sound such as PCM 5.1/7.1 or DolbyHD and DTS-HD codecs that can be found on Blu-Ray disks.
One of the real advantages of HDMI is the ability to transfer the lossless audio codecs for movies due to the extra bandwidth. Even a TOSLINK cable can't handle those, and they'll just downmix to normal PCM 2.1 or Dolby Digital.
I was wondering if a normal consumer card could output those lossless codecs to a receiver that could decode them...much like the PS3 can.
Without the better audio, a Blu-Ray is just a higher-resolution DVD. The lossless audio's half of the advantage.
If there's a pass through from an audio card to an HDMI video card...will any (consumer-level) audio cards support those codecs?
Click to expand...

eventually, if not already
 
Domingo said:
Even a TOSLINK cable can't handle those, and they'll just downmix to normal PCM 2.1 or Dolby Digital.
Click to expand...

Sadly it's not because TOSLINK doesn't have the bandwidth (it does), it has to do with the industry wanting to copy-protect every stage of high-def playback and keep it all under the lock and key of HDCP and other protections.
 
Asus have a sound card coming out soon with HDMI out, just google it. It sounds pretty good, will definately use it instead of the Creative Xfi I have now.

As for the sound out of the ATI cards through HDMI, well, it's not so good, only 5.1 through AC3 and everything else is 2 channel pcm.
 
does using the HDMI out to an HDTV fix overscan that otherwise happens with an DVI out?
 
Err...I'm not wanting a sound card with an HDMI out...because then we have the whole problem of both an HDMI video out and audio out. That's just using another slot. Most receivers only have 1-2 ins, so I'm not going to waste one like that. I was wondering that if any could use a pass through cable (internally) to take care of both.
Sounds like the current cards won't, but the new ones likely will. I'll just stick to my 5.1 multi-out cable and DVI to HDMI adapter for the moment.

Chameleoneel also has a point. Even though 1080p and 1920x1080x60 are technically the same, TV's don't see it that way. There can be overscan or just general visual differences that you have to manually adjust. I've more or less fixed it on my TV, but it's still not perfect. I wonder if the HDMI out will make the TV see the visuals as 1080p and do a proper (automatic) screen fill.
 
Domingo said:
Err...I'm not wanting a sound card with an HDMI out...because then we have the whole problem of both an HDMI video out and audio out. That's just using another slot. Most receivers only have 1-2 ins, so I'm not going to waste one like that. I was wondering that if any could use a pass through cable (internally) to take care of both.
Sounds like the current cards won't, but the new ones likely will. I'll just stick to my 5.1 multi-out cable and DVI to HDMI adapter for the moment.

Chameleoneel also has a point. Even though 1080p and 1920x1080x60 are technically the same, TV's don't see it that way. There can be overscan or just general visual differences that you have to manually adjust. I've more or less fixed it on my TV, but it's still not perfect. I wonder if the HDMI out will make the TV see the visuals as 1080p and do a proper (automatic) screen fill.
Click to expand...

Consider outputing sound directly to the receiver and video to directly to the TV. No reason for video to go through the receiver, unless you're using it for upscaling.

As for new video cards handling 1.3 hdmi, I wasn't aware that ATI or nVidia had plans like this so perhaps you shouldn't count on this - would have been nice. (Anyone know something here?) The only 1.3 hdmi card I'm aware of is the prelude adaptor in a few months, but that's a sound card.
 
nray said:
Sadly it's not because TOSLINK doesn't have the bandwidth (it does), it has to do with the industry wanting to copy-protect every stage of high-def playback and keep it all under the lock and key of HDCP and other protections.
Click to expand...

Exactly. AACS rules limit unencrypted sound being passed over a "user accessible bus" to AC3-grade. SPDIF/Toslink isn't encrypted. Intel HD Audio (chipset feature) mostly uses user accessible buses (such as PCIe), which I presume is why ATI is limited to AC3-grade audio even though they have ditched the need for the SPDIF cable. Intel HD Audio can do better but requires the implementation of kernel-level encryption (Secure Audio Path), which MS hasn't done yet. For similar reasons, I wouldn't hold my breath about the ASUS Xonar AV1 doing HD audio.

The best bet may be the newer chipsets (e.g? P38, G38, X48, MCP7A-U/S) as they can do DVI/HDMI+HDCP and HD Audio, and may be able to be implemented such that the audio stream can be passed to the video output without going near a "user accessible bus". ... maybe
 
echn111 said:
Consider outputing sound directly to the receiver and video to directly to the TV. No reason for video to go through the receiver, unless you're using it for upscaling.

As for new video cards handling 1.3 hdmi, I wasn't aware that ATI or nVidia had plans like this so perhaps you shouldn't count on this - would have been nice. (Anyone know something here?) The only 1.3 hdmi card I'm aware of is the prelude adaptor in a few months, but that's a sound card.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I'm doing now. I was just looking for an "all in one" solution so when I hit the "input" button on the receiver, it does everything. Not a big, deal but just one of those things on a wishlist.
For the moment I'm actually running 3 different outputs.
I have DVI to HDMI for video, a multi-out from my X-Fi for multi-channel audio, and a secondary TOSLINK for anything in AC3 or DTS. The HDMI would just simplify that.
 
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