I was searching through the internet to find an answer to my problem. Maybe you can give me some answers? I would enlarge my home cinema system from 5.1 to 7.1. I have a great receiver almost 2 years: LUXMAN RV-491 which has many analog and digital inputs and outputs. The decoders inside can decode a DVD signal in Dolby Digital (or DTS) in 5.1 channels. This receiver is also prepared with 7.1 analog inputs (output from external decoder). Because I'm a computer minded person and I don't want to by another expensive receiver/decoder set top box, I want to experiment with my computer. At this moment I have a Creative Live Player 1024 sound card, but I want to buy an other card which can deliver 7.1 sound to my receiver (M-audio Delta 410 or Hoontech Media 7.1 or Hercules Game Theater XP 7.1). I have looking through the internet and I read many reviews. What do I want to do? I want to send the sound of my external DVD player by digital output (s/pdif or optical) to the digital input of the soundcard (rack). The decoding of Dolby Digital (or DTS) should happen through my PC (sound card / software). Afterwards the decoded signal can be send to my receiver to be amplified. Can I use f.e. PowerDVD PRO EX or WinDVD 4.0 to decode the digital signal without using an internal DVD-rom? If not, maybe other software? Maybe it isn't possible yet. Something for the future or totally unreal? Hopefully you can give me satisfying answers.