Slightly OT: PC connection to A/V amp

[Grumps]

Well, I am trying to do this myself, so that's the connection to diy.

I have a DVD player with digital co-ax output. This goes to my A/V amp and then to a 5.1 speaker system. This works fine.

I have a PC with 6-ch audio out which also goes to the A/V amp. This also works fine.

But, I want to add a sound card that has digital output (co-ax or optical) that I can feed to the amp. But, I've searched (probably not hard enough) for sound cards. Then downloaded the manuals. And invariably (100% so far), the digital output indicates 2-channel only. Am I going mad? When the card's driver software says "to enable spdif, select 2-speakers and click enable", does that mean that the spdif connection will only transport stereo and not the full info for 5.1? Or is the s/pdif stream some magic encoding method and the amp converts to 5.1?

Oh, the reason I want this connection is to correct lip-sync issues with some movie files I have. The amp can delay the audio stream if it is presented on the digital inputs only (not the analog 5.1).

Thanks.

[geoff]

In message , Grumps writes

Weeeeelll

I've just overcome the same problem

I assume that your AV amp has HDMI inputs

If your motherboard will take it, instead of messing around with a sound card, buy a video card with a HDMI output.

[Grumps]

Well, that would be the best solution. My video card does have HDMI which includes the audio. However, the amp only has an HDMI switch. It cannot extract the audio stream from these inputs. But thanks for the suggestion.

[Adam Aglionby]

Up to 5.1 soundtrack is actually carried as a stereo pair and then decoder uses matrix tricks, adding and deducting signals form each other, to create the six seperate channels. Optical soundtrack on 35mm film is stereo wavy lines down side of picture. Additional channels added on movie print are now in 3D barcode inbetween the sprocket holes.

Lot of Sony Philips Digital Interconnect Format connectors will only output 2 channel stereo, ones that will up mix 5.1 look for Dolby Digital Live" certified products.

To get DolbyHD audio which need s to be caried via HDMI because of DRM , only one audio card can currently do it, Asus Xonar which has a HDMI video encoder chip on it simply to handle the encyption complications.

good place to ask.

Adam

.

[Grumps]

Thanks. I've posted there now.