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Originally Posted by glimmerung
Did you try this solution Xonar? I'd be very interested if you did manage to get a soundcard/software solution to decode DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD and pass it to the power amps via analog cables as I could find myself in a similar situation soon.
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Even on-board audio solutions will do this - the player software decodes the True HD or DTS HD tracks to PCM and then the on-board sound solution converts this PCM to analogue audio - just as with any other app. (Probably limited to 48K/16bit)
Onboard analogue sound solutions are notoriously poor quality - but there are higher quality analogue sound cards that do much better. This is a route many have taken - the card doesn't do the True HD/DTS HD decoding - the player software does.
Some graphics cards (ATI 4xxx series) and some IGP solutions (8200, 8300, 9200, 9300) DO support output of the decoded PCM via HDMI - again subsampled to 48K/16bit if originally at a higher sampling rate or bit-depth (not a huge number are)
The tricky bit is bitstreaming the True HD or DTS HD digital audio un-decoded via HDMI. This is not currently supported by IGP or Graphics card solutions (as it requires a Protected Audio Path - which AIUI Microsoft don't have standardised driver support for) and only the Xonar and Auzentech solutions (which use proprietary implementations requiring specific playback applications)
The Auzentech has not been released yet, the Xonar is shipping, but is very specific in OS terms - and doesn't support 24p video.