connecting pc to home theater...

[DrWho]

I was wondering if anyone here has had any experience connecting an Audigy2 ZS Platinum to a surround reciever via digital coax. I've got everything hooked up correctly, but I can't figure out how to get the surround sound test to work properly. Basically, I get FL, sub and FR, but the C and SL and SR all are matrixed and come out of every speaker (they work when I turn on the cmss thing).

I haven't tried a DVD yet, but would a DVD have discrete output? What about gaming? I use the surround channels a lot in my gaming and need them to be discrete. How would I go about making sure this happens?

[j-malotky]

I have only connected Coax using it as a passthru. For this to work your card would need to translate the 5.1 signal into a AC3 or PCM signal to pass via Coax. Although I do not own an audigy, I do not think it can do this. To transfer the analog signal outputed from the card, most people just connect the analog outputs into the 6 RCA jacks into the receiver.

As for games, some do have a AC3 encoding, but I would think most are just an analog signal.

for DVD's it is very easy to set up the PC to pass through the AC3 or DTS signal via Coax.

JM

[Shade]

The surround test won't work in 5.1, the card cannot encode to AC3. DVDs will output 5.1, as they are already encoded in 5.1. You just need to setup the card for SPDIF passthru. Not sure if you play games, but you can't get 5.1 on those either.

Hope I'm not sounding negative here, you'll run into the same thing with almost all of the sound cards out there when using a digital output.

[DrWho]

Well this indeed is very annoying...

The whole reason I wanted to go to digital was because it'd be less cables connecting the two. Also, the tip on my 1/8" stereo miniplug to stereo RCA adapter is too fat to allow another cable to be plugged into the adjacent slots.

Thanks for the replies. I had a feeling that would be the answer too

[meuge]

SPDIF from the Audigy will only carry a stereo signal or the passthrough of the DD/DTS. If you want to use multichannel outputs, such as for games, you'll need to use the analog outputs.

[DirtRider]

I am thinking of getting the new audigy 2 video editor as it can do sound and video (coming out next month). I wanted to cure the hissing my sound card releases on the laptop. I tried everything including reformatting, new drivers, registry tweaks, and even getting the motherboard replaced but it seems these dell inspiron 8600s are notorious for unclear sound emited from the card.

When I output from the headphone out into the cd in on my denon 3805 I hear the hiss so I wanted to try the digital coax out. With the digitial coax out going into coax input 1 on the receiver which is mapped to the aux 1 input I get a very flat response. Virtually no bass and it just sounds terrible. However when I plug back in the stereo cord which maps to the cd input and leave the receiver on the aux input 1 (with the coax plugged in too) then things sound better. Now why would the stereo signal going into the receiver affect the v aux 1 which has only the coax coming from the computer. This makes no sense to me.

Also, can someone give me a brief explanation of pcm and ac3? Is pcm just stereo signal and ac3 dolby digital?

Thanks

[DrWho]

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On 1/25/2005 10:57:12 AM DirtRider wrote:

Also, can someone give me a brief explanation of pcm and ac3? Is pcm just stereo signal and ac3 dolby digital?

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Yes, PCM is your basic digital format for a stereo bitstream. AC3 is a digital format that sends a multichannel (surround sound) bitstream.

If you are getting a sound card for your laptop, then I would highly recommend going with one of the USB options. I personally would have gone with one, but the computer company that I just got this pc from was freaken retarded in so many ways...i got almost exactly what i wanted so no complaints.

Btw, the audigy2 kicks the crap out of the audigy. to be honest, i was insanely surprised.

[DrWho]

crap, i forgot to add...

the reason your digital problem sounds worse than the analog inputs probably has something to do with EQ...both on the reciever and the computer. Your straight up digital connection probably has no EQ by default and your pc probably doesn't EQ a digital pass through.

[DirtRider]

here's the new toy coming soon...

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=204&product=11226

[DirtRider]

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Your straight up digital connection probably has no EQ by default and your pc probably doesn't EQ a digital pass through.

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I don't know what the pc does by default for equalizing the stereo connection. It makes sense to me that the receiver wouldn't equalize the digital pass through. In this case it would expect the player (i.e. something like a denon 3910) to have equalized the digital signal first.

1. Anyone know if the denon 3805 can apply the equalizer to the digital stream coming in over coax?

2. Why would the stereo signal affect the coax one when the receiver isn't on the stereo input but instead on the v aux 1 input which is assigned to the coax 1 (see above message for more detail)?

[JJkizak]

DrWho:

PCM is stereo only. AC-3 is PCM recoded to save room on DVD's, etc. AC-3 is considered a "transport stream" . If you encode PCM to AC-3 the resultant file will be 1/2 the PCM and the quality the same or better. Dolby 5.1 is also encoded in the ac-3 transport stream. All DVD's are recorded in AC-3 stereo because it saves tons of room on the disc, especially if you include selections of Dolby 5.1, DTS, etc as you have to have room on the disc to put all of this stuff on. That's why they use MPEG-2 to incode the video as it compresses the video considerable. And by the way all of your broadcasts on HDTV are incoded in the MPEG-2 transport stream so that they can be transported with minimum bandwidth requirements, so when you look at that beautiful HDTV picture it is MPEG-2. The encoders used by the big guys cost about 30 g's apiece. You will occasionally see the blocking and artifacts associated with MPEG-2 coding when watching your HDTV. Basically PCM and AC-3 quality are the same. The sample rate for AC-3 is about 224KHZ. If your doing HI-Def it jumps to about 384KHZ. Dolby 5.1 is somewhere around 484 KHZ. Once you encode the sound and video together on a DVD the sound is then known as MPEG1 Layer2. If you bust the sound back off the VOB file then it beomes AC-3 again. Kool, huh? Then theres MP-3, DVD-Audio, and another one I forgot that the Mac's use.

JJK--Psuedo Guru

PS: Forgot WMA, MOV, Real Player

[toddvj]

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On 1/25/2005 5:00:04 PM DirtRider wrote:

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Your straight up digital connection probably has no EQ by default and your pc probably doesn't EQ a digital pass through.

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I don't know what the pc does by default for equalizing the stereo connection. It makes sense to me that the receiver wouldn't equalize the digital pass through. In this case it would expect the player (i.e. something like a denon 3910) to have equalized the digital signal first.

1. Anyone know if the denon 3805 can apply the equalizer to the digital stream coming in over coax?

2. Why would the stereo signal affect the coax one when the receiver isn't on the stereo input but instead on the v aux 1 input which is assigned to the coax 1 (see above message for more detail)?

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I don't see any reason why the receiver shouldn't be able to EQ the digital signal. In fact, if anything, it probably can't EQ the multi-channel inputs. But that is not what he was talking about. He was talking about the Computer doing equalization BEFORE the signal was sent to the receiver.

I don't understand your second question.

I have my Audigy 2ZS hooked up with both the digital and Analog (six channel) outputs. For DVDs, I use the digital output, for things like WMHD or DVD-Audio, I use the six channel. I'm sure games would be better with the Analog outputs as well. If you are only going to use the digital connection, you need AC3 Filter (do a google search). Plan to spend a little time getting everything working, it can be a headache, but well worth it in the end.