Audio over HDMI

[idiotekniQues]

Hello.

I have been looking for a new card because after upgrading from my 21" CRT to a 24" LCD in january- i need more oomph than what I got.

I figured since I was looking for a new card I wanted to find out about outputting from my pc to my 42" plasma, and that brought me to the question of how would my audio from the pc get there, as they are 1 room apart.

I dont have a home theatre system, nor do i want to have to split and run audio out from my sound card if I dont have to since i know HDMI does both.

So HDMI does carry audio and video, but do video cards do it too? found out all the radeons do since i guess the 2xxxx series? Found out nvidia's do not, except i saw the 9600GT by Palit that lets you run spdif in from your sound card externally or internally if you have the 2 pin connectors.

why is this factor not ever mentioned when judging a card? am i one of just a very few people that want to output their PC to a TV? Maybe people only think of this as for an HTPC? I think of an HTPC as a PC dedicated to just home theatre usage though, or am i thinking of it wrong?

What about those of us who want hybrid capability from their rigs?

Do gamers on here only game and HTPC'ers only HTPC?

anyways, i thought it was good info, and since i want to use my rig for both gaming and having the option to spit out HD content in a convenient manner to my tv, the fact that ati cards can do all over HDMI gives them an advantage. because of this ill probably grab the 3870 instead of an 8800GT instead. so it does make a difference.

 

[Throckmorton]

Cards have an SPDIF input that they use to transfer sound over HDMI

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues
why is this factor not ever mentioned when judging a card? am i one of just a very few people that want to output their PC to a TV? Maybe people only think of this as for an HTPC? I think of an HTPC as a PC dedicated to just home theatre usage though, or am i thinking of it wrong?

Its still a very new concept for the PC and although its rare to see questions about it asked here, I'm sure more will be interested going forward for the same reasons you are. There's actually a good bit of chatter and Q&A about it over in the A/V HT category on these forums. I'm sure if you want extremely detailed discussion Ars or AVS is the place to be.

But from my own research and a few HDMI card reviews, it seems the current sound over HDMI options are very limited right now and don't offer any benefit over s/pdif over coax/optical other than sound and video carried over a single wire. And that's all assuming you have a source (Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player) that would benefit from the HD sound formats.

Reality is most people don't have a high-end A/V system for their PC and simply will not benefit from the higher-end HDMI solutions. Even in the dedicated HT market, receivers that can handle the high-end formats like DTS-MA, TrueHD etc are expensive. On the lower-end, many receivers no longer include the 7.1 analog inputs needed for the alternative to bitstream decoding via receiver, LPCM. I'm currently running LPCM via analog, but it requires the full version of PDVD Ultra and only internally samples at 48kHZ.

As more people integrate their PCs into their HT or purchase 1080p capable LCDs and the price of optical Blu-Ray discs come down, I think we'll see a lot more about this along with better HDMI sound implementations.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Since the 2xxx series ATI video cards with 'Avivo' come with a DVI to HDMI adapter which supports HD video with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 audio .

However, the onboard HDMI of the new 780g chipset mobos only support 2 channel - have to use you spdif for 5.1 AC3 ....