Help-How do I get TrueHD through SPdif

C

carl15

Guest
I have my HDCP setup via a media centre. I am using onboard sound card with my motherboard which is mewant to have HD Sound and I bought an SPDIF output which fits to it..
Now recently I played a BLURAY-Resident Evil-Extinction which only has TrueHD sound.
Unforunately all I get is stereo from my amp.
Is there any way of getting the TrueHD or very least DTS or DD 5.1 as stereo is awfull.
My amp isnt capable of decoding True HD itself.

Carl
 
The way it's supposed to work is that if the disc detects that the hardware isn't TrueHD compatible, then it should access a hidden Dolby Digital soundtrack (can't be selected from the menus).

Sound like this doesn't work properly on a PC - the software (presumably PDVD Ultra) is TrueHD compatible, but this can't be output over SPDIF, so it looks like PDVD is then downmixing it to stereo for you!
The disc operating software is likely detecting that the player (in this case PDVD) is TrueHD compatible, and so isn't activating the hidden DD5.1 mix.
Catch 22!

However, there is an SPDIF mixing feature on PDVD, which is supposed to allow you to downmix TrueHD/DD+ to DD or DTS.
If you select Configuration - Audio while a disc is playing a True HD track, then under the Speaker Environmnent (which should be set to "Use SPDIF"),
you'll see that the usually greyed out box "Enable SPDIF Mixing" is now active - if you select that, you should get the full 5.1 TrueHD downmixed to 5.1 DTS (or 5.1 AC3 Dolby Digital).
That's as I understand it - never used this feature myself though! Hope it works OK!
 
The way it's supposed to work is that if the disc detects that the hardware isn't TrueHD compatible, then it should access a hidden Dolby Digital soundtrack (can't be selected from the menus).

Sound like this doesn't work properly on a PC - the software (presumably PDVD Ultra) is TrueHD compatible, but this can't be output over SPDIF, so it looks like PDVD is then downmixing it to stereo for you!
The disc operating software is likely detecting that the player (in this case PDVD) is TrueHD compatible, and so isn't activating the hidden DD5.1 mix.
Catch 22!

However, there is an SPDIF mixing feature on PDVD, which is supposed to allow you to downmix TrueHD/DD+ to DD or DTS.
If you select Configuration - Audio while a disc is playing a True HD track, then under the Speaker Environmnent (which should be set to "Use SPDIF"),
you'll see that the usually greyed out box "Enable SPDIF Mixing" is now active - if you select that, you should get the full 5.1 TrueHD downmixed to 5.1 DTS (or 5.1 AC3 Dolby Digital).
That's as I understand it - never used this feature myself though! Hope it works OK!

I am using the Power DVD Ultra as you mention Mike.
What you describe sounds about right.
I'll try your idea tonight. Cheers.

Carl
 
The way it's supposed to work is that if the disc detects that the hardware isn't TrueHD compatible, then it should access a hidden Dolby Digital soundtrack (can't be selected from the menus).

Sound like this doesn't work properly on a PC - the software (presumably PDVD Ultra) is TrueHD compatible, but this can't be output over SPDIF, so it looks like PDVD is then downmixing it to stereo for you!
The disc operating software is likely detecting that the player (in this case PDVD) is TrueHD compatible, and so isn't activating the hidden DD5.1 mix.
Catch 22!

However, there is an SPDIF mixing feature on PDVD, which is supposed to allow you to downmix TrueHD/DD+ to DD or DTS.
If you select Configuration - Audio while a disc is playing a True HD track, then under the Speaker Environmnent (which should be set to "Use SPDIF"),
you'll see that the usually greyed out box "Enable SPDIF Mixing" is now active - if you select that, you should get the full 5.1 TrueHD downmixed to 5.1 DTS (or 5.1 AC3 Dolby Digital).
That's as I understand it - never used this feature myself though! Hope it works OK!


I tried your solution Mike and it does work although the sound now has a metalic ting to it., as if every sound has a metalic echoe if that makes sense.
Can you explain why this might be?

Cheers Carl
 
Strange - is the metallic ring there on both AC3 and DTS?
 
It wont let me highlight the AC3 option.

Just tried it, but it won't let me highlight AC3 either!

Unfortunately I don't have the SPDIF connected on my home PC, so while I can select SPDIF as the speaker environment, and select DTS mixing, I can only actually listen in analogue stereo - however, despite it being lower volume than LPCM 5.1 (from the Patriot BD), it does sound OK!

Try it on a disc with LPCM sound (assuming you have one handy) - see if it's just TrueHD that's affected or LPCM too!
 

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