Vista, SPDIF, PowerDVD, Blu-ray & HD-DVD

[mmace]

this has probably already been discussed, but I've searched hundreds of threads and posts and cannot find an answer, can anyone help or point me in the right direction?

I have Vista Ultimate 32bit, PowerDVD Ultra 7.3, Blu-ray and HD-DVD drives

I used to use XP to watch my movies before I "upgraded" which SPDIF worked fine for both formats

Now I cannot use my on board digital coax SPDIF to listen to the movie soundtracks, everything is down-converted to stereo

is there a way around this?
is there a new sound card I can buy that will enable this?

using analogue speakers all plugged into my PC is not an option, and neither is going back to XP

[Andy98765]

If you are talking about listening to movies soundtracks held on the Hard drive then you will only get stereo, via your DVD drives and power DVD you should get 5.1 if set up correctly as it will be SPDIF pass through, this is controlled by settings in Power DVD if you have the correct version. Basically for hard drive sound tracks you will need a software/hardware MPEG encoder for SPDIF to work correctly, known as AC3 pass through. I had the same problem on XP but over came by using the analogue outputs via a Creative sound blaster card.

[mmace]

I am talking Blu-ray & HD-DVD discs in PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 on Windows Vista

I can play everything else fine (including video files with AC3/DD soundtracks from HDD)

by "soundtrack" I mean the audio to a movie

[kaygeebee]

i'm having a similar experience with my Vista 64 setup.

my problem (which sounds similar to yours) is that FFDSHOW's audio settings are only allowing me to output the digital soundtrack when AC3 is physically enabled in the settings. However, when this is enabled all other non-digitally encoded media is muted as it's not routed/switching to the appropriate codec setting.

I'm using (rightly or wrongly) a mixture of FFDSHOW and AC3 Filter to try and remedy.... altho at present NEITHER are auto switching correctly

anyone else experiencing this or know's the cure?

[dubious]

I have no idea if this is anyway connected to your problems but on my Asus MB there is a setting in the bios which has to be enabled/changed for Vista HD audio.

[mmace]

I can play DD in video files that are on my HDD, it's just the DRM bit of Vista stopping Blu-ray & HD-DVD (and maybe DVD, not tried), wondered if there's some sort of sound card I could get like I got an HDCP gfx card for the video

[mmace]

I'm guessing it's a PowerDVD thing, I just ripped a BD and an HD-DVD disc to my HDD removing all copy protection and it still doesn't give me the option of SPDIF?! (which is strange as it's fine in XP!)

[rww163]

There is a sound option setting in PowerDVD that enables SPDIF output, to access it though, you need to open the player with no disc installed or playing back, otherwise it's just greyed out or not shown. Then you just choose the appropriate output you want.

[FeiJi Fancier]

This [click here] (http://www.avforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6817755&postcount=29) might be useful information.

[mmace]

This [click here] (http://www.avforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6817755&postcount=29) might be useful information.cheers, but a year and 2 months too late

[FeiJi Fancier]

Ultra 8 and Blu-Ray 1.1 have only been out for a few months (if that), and I'm still seeing people being baffled by the screwy set up of sound under Vista.

Ultra 7 OEM still has problems with Blu-Ray 1.1, even though it is being bundled with LG hd-dvd/Blu-ray PC players.