Best DOLBY TRUE HD, DTS-HD,SACD,DVD-A sound card

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by cirrus18

What about this then? Moderator comment: link removed

It is VERY dubious legally - and appears to require the discs to be ripped to hard drive (or at the very least to have the AACS encryption circumvented)... Not sure how good the menu support is either - I think it just plays the main movie?

Not hugely different to the Popcorn Hour A110 solution (the PCH will bitstream TrueHD and DTS HD via HDMI1.3)

[timberwolf]

Originally Posted by Stephen Neal

It is VERY dubious legally - and appears to require the discs to be ripped to hard drive (or at the very least to have the AACS encryption circumvented)... Not sure how good the menu support is either - I think it just plays the main movie?

Not hugely different to the Popcorn Hour A110 solution (the PCH will bitstream TrueHD and DTS HD via HDMI1.3)

]

whats wrong with the Popcorn A110

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by timberwolf

whats wrong with the Popcorn A110

Nothing as a media player - but to play HD-DVDs and Blu-rays on it you would have to circumvent the DRM on them (i.e. rip them to a hard drive un-encrypted) and remux them - which would probably not be considered legal in many regions. Just as the above Linux player - it is only a solution for playing the movie - you wouldn't get menus etc. (and stuff like PIP)

I have a Popcorn A100 and love it for replay of recorded BBC HD material, and other file stuff. It also plays DVD ISOs very well - but only those which don't have copy protection.

[michaelcwh]

Originally Posted by Digicon

If you want the Full HD audio experience through the PC at the moment the only solution is the HDAV 1.3 from Asus although expensive and still cannot pass 1080/24p it is the best solution for bitstreaming.

Now if you have one of the ATI 48XX series cards or one of the IGP's 8200/8300 or 9300/9400 and are willing to take a steep learning curve then Full HD audio is possible through those cards and M\B's i have mentioned.

The only way at the moment is to convert your Blu ray's to MKV format with .flac audio, All the necessary programs are freeware its just taking the time to learn how to convert them. And best of all MPC-HD or KmPlayer can play these MKV's back with no loss of picture quality or audio quality as .flac is the only as far as i know audio container that does not downsample through any windows operating system.

I am using HDAV 1.3 and ATI 4870 and KMPlayer to watch BD discs, but I don't know too much about HTPC and not very sure how to make the settings. Now I can use KMPlayer to watch BD movies but the subtitles are not showing nor I can choose sound tracks. Can I seek any help from you about the settings?

[baron samadi]

I'm using on board hd audio codec via analogue out and power dvd for dolby true hd and the sound is very sweet. I know it's only 48k sampling but with the 3000-4000 bitrate it's very clear sounding.

[flight1]

Hi i the same original questions as in the beginning of this post. As I see it HD audio on a pc is all down to your decoding software(i.e. power DVD etc all down sample to analoge pre outs Grrrrr!). I have seen Windvd 9plus blue ray advertised as having 96 kHz/24-bit Audio Decoding which is petty good. has any one tryed it?
another question i have what sound card hase room correction capabilities to go with. i only looking at my PC sound card as a pre amp and having a clase D power amp as this is the path to the true aspirations of a media centre one box does all at best quality