SPDIF output question - Vista 64 bit, Sound Blaster External Live USB

[dwhthompson]

Hello:

I have a PC running vista 64 bit and an external Sound Blaster Live USB soundcard and via Vista Media Centre, have been successfully outputting digital audio direct to speakers via optical cable now for over a year.

However, I have recently added a blu-ray drive as well as a dvb-s2 device and have not had any luck at all in outputting digital audio direct to the speakers via PowerDVD 8 or WinDVD 9 (blu ray playback) or DVBViewer or ArcSoft (dvb-s playback).

In every application I have tried (other than Media Centre), as soon as I enable "direct to spdif" not only do I lose all audio playback, but in addition, the video playback will often completely freeze up or play extremely slowly and choppily.

I have also tried running AC3Filter or Elecard in the background (enabling SPDIF that way) but this has the exact same results.

Would greatly appreciate any advice you can give as I find it so strange that SPDIF direct output works fine in Media Centre but in absolutely no other application.

Cheers!

[acollins]

when you had the sound card setup and running media centre were you able to play mpg, avi files with 5.1 dolby digital?

thanks