PC, 5.1 and Xbox360.. No Receiver.

[JonRushton]

Hey all...

Im at work atm, so this is just a thought, but here goes..

I have a Media Center, and a set of 5.1 speakers. They are just 3x 3.5mm jack connectors, and a single set of aux phono stereo inputs.

They are connected to the MC for 5.1 surround, and they work fine... but. i want to connect my XBox to them. My soundcard has optical input/output, and obviously the xbox has optical out. Is it possible to use the MC to pass through the 5.1 signal via optical from XBox360, so basically using the MC as the receiver?

Cheers for your thoughts in advance.
Jon

[triplea4uk]

Yes you can if your soundcard supports it.

[JonRushton]

Quick question.. if i chose Digital Stereo.. No probs... if i choose Dolby Digital 5.1, i get data squark instead of the proper sound. Now i have the option for Dolby and DTS on my sound card settings. These are both checked. Is there anything i need to do on my PC to convert the Dolby?

Thinking about it, i havn't checked ffdshow settings, because i think there is an option to configure SPDIF pass-through. Is this what i need to mess with?

Cheers,

Jon

[howardbut]

The only sound card as far as I know that supports AC3 digital decode via external digital input is Creative Audigy 1/2 with KX_Driver. See the followings for information

http://www.driverheaven.net/3-d-audi...-decoding.html

http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/

[JonRushton]

Ill have a look at that. My card is an X-Fi 7.1 PCI-E card... Not sure if anyone has an experience with the card.

[howardbut]

actually i haven't tried that since I end up bought a "cheapy" external 5.1decoder from ebay (rare product).

anyway... have a try. if it doesn't work, and your speaker set was not too expensive, get a new set then (an entry 5.1 set won't cost you more than 150 from richersound and should be well better than general computer speaker)!