NF2 MCP - good for HTPC? (kinda detailed)

[MichaelD]

I've decided I'm going to take the guts of one of my F@H rigs and turn it into my HTPC.

Mobo: Epox 8RDA3I This mobo has a coaxial digital out
Memory: 512MB Corsair Value PC3200
CPU: 2500 Barton @ 2.11GHz (will probably knock it down to stock speed (1.8GHz) for cooling purposes)

The impetus for this build is to have my MP3 collection available to my HT setup. Eventually though, I want movies, I.E. Dolby Digital.

My HT reciever has an available coxial digital input.

Now, the question. IIRC, the MCP-T DOES the DD encoding/decoding, which I don't need, since my receiver will be doing that.

Will I be OK w/this setup? Thanks.

 

[MichaelD]

Bump for the Friday evening crowd.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'd guess you just tell the sound"card" drivers to pass through the raw digital signal, and/or tell your DVD player software the same thing. But it would definitely be nice to know for sure before going to all the trouble. I suppose at worst you could pick up a $20 soundcard (gigabyte or chaintech has one dirt-cheap with digital out).

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks, DaveSimmons. I don't see why I'd need an additional sound card just to have digitial out, since the mobo already has it's own digital out.

I'm basically concerned about the quality of said digital out...if there is such a thing as "quality of a digital out"...I mean...digital is digital is digital, right? I.E...the digital signal would have "all the parts" necessary for my receiver to do the Dolby Digital Decoding, right?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yes, as long as you tell the soundcard to pass through the raw data -- I think for most DVD playback software it defaults to software decoding, then sending its decoded signal to the soundcard, which then either sends just stereo or its own re-encoded 5.1. You have to change its settings to pass as-is

 

[MichaelD]

Bump on the way to bed. See you in the AM. I know there's lots of you out there with the answers; Give to the needy and don't be greedy.

 

[Boogak]

You'll be ok with that setup. You'll be passing a 2 channel PCM signal to your receiver most of the time and a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal when you play DVD's that have a 5.1 soundtrack.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks Boogak.

 

[JavaMomma]

It will work. I have a Asus A7N8X Dx. I believe all I had to do was set the DVD Player software to SPDIF out in the audio settings.