Vista and SPDIF passthrough - definitive anwser?

[cj]

I've done plenty of searches, but can't seem to find a definitive answer.

Am I right in thinking it's down to support in the audio drivers?

I'm trying out a Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD with PowerDVD Ultra, but there doesn't seem to be an option (that I can find) to enable me to passthrough a digital signal to my amp.

[tinners]

I'm no expert but the Trust card I have in my Vista Media Center works great with the drivers on http://cmediadrivers.googlepages.com/faq for SPDIF, but with the Trust drivers definately does something to the sound stream as it does not sound anything like as good.

Why should I use your driver?
If you have an amplifier/receiver with a digital input, it may be a good solution.
Nowadays most consumer market sound devices (Creative, AC97, HDA) alter the sound in one way or the other and thus induce a significant loss of quality - this renders them almost completely unusable for audiophile Hi-Fi enthusiasts. Not so with this driver: lossless bitperfect playback over the external digital ports is fully supported. Also, the sample rate is dynamically adjusted to the current playback source. This may sound simple, but even lots of "professional grade" soundcards lack such capabilities.
This driver is completely bloat-free (no annoying tray icon), small (100kB), fast (due to the lack of sound processing) and stable. Unlike the official drivers, it supports true 16 bit output and DTS/AC3 passthrough. Also, it runs on all the major Windows flavors (including the Media Center Edition/MCE) and the source code is fully available. Thus it's especially well suited for HTPC usage.

PS thanks to xxxx for the link to the drivers in this post

[Malabbey]

Originally Posted by cj

Am I right in thinking it's down to support in the audio drivers?

Yes, that's right. I have an Abit AV8 board with 7.1 onboard sound and have installed Realteks 32bit Vista drivers and Realteks HD drivers and can get SPDIF pass-through no problem.
You're right in not finding an SPDIF option in PowerDVD because there isn't one. You have to enable SPDIF in the sound options in Windows control panel

[xxxx]

Originally Posted by tinners

... with the Trust drivers definately does something to the sound stream as it does not sound anything like as good.

As far as I can understand it, the official Trust drivers reduce the signal to 14-bit, which is why DTS wav pass-through won't work. The other drivers you mention bring it back up to 16-bit.

PS thanks to xxxx for the link to the drivers in this post

My pleasure. Above all thank the bloke who wrote them. First class job.