Bitstreaming headache

[liam1027ncfp]

Here's what I've got:

Windows 7 64
MSI 785gm e65
ATI Radeon 5570
Onboard Realtek (i think al889)
Denon 890 AVR

Pretty much everything is working correctly. I can watch DVDs or TV in WMC and the audio is correctly passed through as dolby digital, dts, etc.

The problem is when i throw a BD into PowerDVD. I still only get DD or DTS, no TrueHD or DTSMA. I have both PDVD 7.3 and 10, neither work. In 10, I just don't even get the option for HD audio.

In w7 audio manager, my ATI HDMI out says it supports HD audio and up to 8 channels. My Realtek digital output, however, says only 2 channels and DD or DTS formats, but no HD formats.

I've googled around quite a bit and found many people with similar problems, but none of the solutions have worked for me.

I have installed latest ATI drivers and Catalyst 10.3, Realtek vista_win7_248 drivers and Realtek HDMI 242 drivers. I noticed today that Realtek just released newer drivers yesterday, but installing those blew everything up!

Please help! What do i need to do in order to bitstream HD audio?

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[sivart]

Obvious question first...can your AVR decode the HD audio codecs? If so (or if not), can your PC decode the audio and send it out PCM? Same sound quality as bitstream.

 

[nsafreak]

How do you have this hooked up? You do know that in order to do HD audio you have to run an HDMI cable to your receiver, right? Your onboard sound isn't going to be doing any of the processing it should just be passed straight along as LPCM audio.

 

[liam1027ncfp]

Yes, the Denon 890 supports trueHD and dtsma.

I should have mentioned this before, but yes I'm running HDMI from the 5570 to the denon AVR.

There seems to be something in windows 7 or PowerDVD that prohibits software from knowing to output in HD formats. Like I said, PDVD just doesn't even give me the option.

 

[Auric]

Is ATI audio set to default? That may be required if not selectable in the player. If there is no specific use for the mainboard audio then may as well uninstall and disable to simplify.

 

[liam1027ncfp]

Is ATI audio set to default? That may be required if not selectable in the player. If there is no specific use for the mainboard audio then may as well uninstall and disable to simplify.

The ATI was not set as default, but that did not help unfortunately. Disabling the Realtek output did nothing either.

I was able to fix this though. I uninstalled the HDMI drivers completely. I had originally installed the ATI drivers then the Realtek ones over that, but something must have gotten messed up. This time, I just installed the latest ATI drivers for HDMI and success!

The only problem I have now is that PowerDVD 7.3 still only output AC3. I have to use 10 to get HD audio. Obviously, the higher version is better, but I don't want to shell out $100 for that... 7.3 is "supposed" to support HD audio.

Any advice on this?
Thanks again for the help.

 

[nsafreak]

You have disabled the onboard video, right?

 

[liam1027ncfp]

Yes, onboard 4200 is disabled.

On the information tab of powerdvd 7.3 it says that the ATI HDMI audio is "not in use". This has to be wrong though since I do hear sound. 7.3 passes through ac3 just fine. It won't let me pass HD audio though.

Like I said, in pdvd 10 everything is working. I've contacted cyberlink to see what they have to say. This is frustrating.

 

[jtvang125]

I don't think PDVD 7.3 supports hd audio. I have 9 and I could never get it to bitstream either. So now I just rip it to a mkv file with the truehd or dts-ma audio track and let MPC-HC play it. The issue I'm still having seems to be a hdmi handshake issue where the audio will cut out. If I power cycle the receiver or switch the source on it, the audio comes back on. Very frustrating but I havent had much time lately to play around with and see if I can resolved it.