questions about santa cruz and sblive 5.1 de

[AmD4Me]

Im not sure if this is were this thread belongs but here goes.

Does the santa cruz sound card offer AC3 in gamming?

Is it true that the sblive 5.1 de will not provide AC3 in gamming unless u use cambridge speakers?

also, what do these terms mean?

coaxial
optical input/output

and do these soundcards have the optical input and coaxial?

thanx alote 4 your help

 

[Magicthyse]

AC3 refers to Dolby Surround 5.1.

Santa Cruz offers 5.1.
SBLive offers 5.1.

It's not really specifically a gaming thing yet - I don't believe that any game yet is encoded in Dolby Surround - but it is mostly for DVD playback.

Coaxial and Optical are both digital inputs/outputs used for direct transfer of digital audio data from DATs, CD players, etc, and also for output to these devices plus stand-alone Dolby Surround decoders and the like.

The SBLive! Platinum with Live! Drive II is the only setup out of the ones you mentioned which feature coax and optical ins and outs. I do not believe the Santa Cruz ships with either coax or optical connections.

Hope that helps.

 

[AmD4Me]

so u will not get AC3 on a file that is not encoded in Ac3 format right? But wouldnt the external AC3 decoder (that come with speakers) be able to decode the file in AC3?

 

[Magicthyse]

yes

but your soundcard needs to have a digital out connection.