Need help with audio setup on MCE

[Slugbait]

I have a Sony V333 ES, which has TOSLink, COAX and 5.1 analog inputs.

Mobo is an Asus P4B-533MX, which includes onboard SoundMAX audio with COAX out. However, the COAX only works outside of the MCE shell (meaning: must minimize/kill MCE and use PowerDVD for 5.1 surround. Otherwise, I only get 2-channel within the MCE shell...resulting in ProLogic surround). This is a widely known issue with the SoundMAX chipset on the Asus mobos with MCE. Yes, I've given up on finding a solution (as have many before me...there's a huge thread at thegreenbutton).

So...to work around the problem of no 5.1 over COAX in MCE, I drop in an old Audigy and hook up analog cables to the 5.1 inputs on the receiver. All is well for movies in the MCE shell now: full surround. YaY.

However, I must kill the onboard audio in the BIOS in order to play CDs...otherwise the CD audio is routed thru the onboard audio (which I thought was kinda weird). I cannot figure out why audio CDs do not use the Audigy over the same player (Plextor 708A with digital *and/or* MPC cable from drive to soundcard). DVD=good, CD=no sound.

So if I kill the onboard SoundMAX audio in the BIOS, the sound from a CD goes thru the Audigy (YaY) but it is 4.0 channel audio (boo)...the rear speakers emit sound, the sub does not. With the ES receiver set to 5.1 analog (necessary, since it's the only audio input), I cannot set to auto-decode, or apparently do anything else to kill the rears and gain the sub.

If I enable onboard audio in the BIOS and run a cable from the mobo's onboard speaker-out to another input (such as CD-in) on the amp, and then set the amp to CD input, I get 2-channel audio with sub...YaY. But I lose my MCE display on the TV, so I can't control the album with the remote control...boo. Plus, that's just one more cable running to the amp.

My wife will never understand how to set both the amp and the PC in order to switch between music using only 2.1, and movies with 5.1 (and will kill me out of frustration).

Anybody know the solution here? Anybody so confused they didn't even make it down to this paragraph before hitting the back button?

 

[McPudd]

Hi:
I use this card (not expensive) in both my main XP Pro SP2 and MCE2005 systems.
Turtle Beach Montego DDL 7.1 Sound Card Model # TBS-3300-01
to Denon AVR-3802 7x110W based HT System.
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/mtgoddl/
I disabled the on-board audio in bios.
I'm only using the digital optical OUT to my receiver at 48k.
Then I set my receiver to decode any encoded information in the signal or not.
If the source signal is Dolby encoded, my receiver's decoder will detect it and decode if I ask it to.
If the source signal is not Dolby encoded and I want it to be, this card will encode it for DD 5.1 DDL on the fly,
my receiver's decoder will detect the encoding and decode it to DD 5.1 if I wish it to.
The C-Media chip on the card does this well enough and there is no discernable lag in the process.
You can hook the card up for analog 5.1 if you like, I don't bother. I suppose that is more for gaming.
I have enough cabling already.
For gaming, I ignore the EAX, set it for 2 channel stereo, enable DDL encoding and my receiver
decodes the game's audio into DDL 5.1 for my speaker array. Sounds ok to me.
For whatever you do, it shouldn't matter whether you are in MC2005's player or not for this card.
It is the last step in the chain before your receiver. It is just passing though an encoded or unencoded
signal from a media player or encoding the signal itself and sending it along.


Happy trailz,