Asus M3A78-EM, and Dolby D 5.1

[jsbush]

I got this bored for a HTPC. Works great. When I watch DVD's I get Dolby 5.1 output to my reciever via toslink.

What I'm wondering is if I can get all audio sources to be converted and output to my reciever in 5.1. Is this possible? Or am I stuck with PLII?

 

[nenforcer]

I don't believe so.

That motherboard has the Realtek ALC1200 audio chipset which is capable of Dolby Digital passthrough via the optical TOSLINK connection when playing properly encoded media i.e. DVD but it is not capable of upconverting or encoding a stereo source to Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS.

I believe the only devices capable of upconverting a stereo (video game) source are Dolby Digital Live supported sound cards (M-Audio Revolution, Turtle Beach/Voyetra Montego DDL) and my favorite of all time, the nVidia SoundStorm. And even then I think the software program has to support surround sound properly via Dolby Prologic or Dolby Digital. Doom 3, Half Life 2 and the bigger titles.

This hardware encoding and acceleration would only be supported under Windows XP as well, as Windows Vista has really trashed the hardware acceleration of audio API's.

I have always stayed away from the Creative Labs Live!/Audigy/X-Fi as even to this day most of them do not support proper Dolby Digital / DTS output without the purchase of an additional Coaxial / Optical TOSLINK breakout box.

I have another motherboard with an Analog Devices AD1988B integrated audio codec and it only supports passthrough as well, not hardware acceleration of encoding / decoding. Your receiver does the actual decoding / encoding.

 

[heyheybooboo]

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for but Asus ALC1200 is a proprietary version of Realtek ALC889A. I don't know what Asus does with it but ALC889A is capable of all kinds of conversion, emulation, expansion, etc ... including Dolby Digital Live via S/PDIF.

 

[nenforcer]

Here is an interesting link from the AVSForum website which I will quote here

I happened to Email Asus about the ALC1200 Audio Codec. I asked them if the chipset supports (or will support) Dolby Digital Live or DTS connect. Here is what I got in reply.. Hello, This audio codec does not support DTS or Dolby Digital Live. Best Regards, Rob Lead Support Technician ASUS Technology Phone: (812)-282-ASUS RMA: 510-739-3777 opt. 2 http://www.asus.com http://support.asus.com http://livesupport.asus.com

Check out the link towards the bottom of the page
ASUS ALC1200

 

[heyheybooboo]

If that is the case Asus pulled a suckie one - I wonder if they did it to drive the discreet Xonar? - considering Gigabyte has a 780g that does DDL.

If the OP's receiver will convert a stream maybe he can find a workaround ...