Two different simultaneous audio outs?

[AmberClad]

I happened to see this while I was looking for a BIOS update:

7.1 Channel HD Audio
8 channels of High Definition Surround sound turn your PC into a true multi-media centre; enjoy movies, music and games greater audio quality. Intel HD Audio delivers multiple audio channels in your PC so you can listen to two different streams simultaneously in two different rooms.

There's a picture describing it too, so I'm pretty sure I'm not misunderstanding what they mean.

There's no mention of it in the manual. I've always thought that the green port on sound cards/integrated audio is the only output, so I unplug the LCD's audio cable when I want to use headphones on the PC, and vice versa. Kind of a hassle, really.

So how would I go about setting it up exactly like in the picture? What color is the other output port? How do I set it up in software? Help ...

 

[Soundmanred]

It's obvious by the picture that you hook the cable to your "activity room" to the space in front of your case, and the cable going to your sweet wall mounted flat screen to the side of your case.
Honestly though, I've never heard of this. What color/type are the connectors on the card (or board if it's integrated)? Are they all 1/8" (headphone style) jacks?

 

[Nohr]

The onboard Realtek ALC883 "HDA" I have lets me output two separate audio signals. One on the analog outputs (the standard green/black/orange headphone jacks) and a second signal over the digital outputs (coaxial or optical).

You set the default output to either the analog or digital outputs. To use the non-default output the program you're using has to be able to select it in it's settings somewhere. For example, I have my analog outputs set to default so my games and such are played on my PC speakers, but in foobar's settings I select the digital output so I can listen to MP3s on my home theater system. They both play at the same time with no problems.

I don't know if it's possible with my onboard sound to have two separate analog outputs going however.

 

[pkrush]

I don't know if your onboard sound can actually output two different audio channels simultaneously, but the easy way to do this is to get a USB soundcard and set whatever program you want to output through the second set of speakers to use that device for the audio. Geeks.com sells one for $6.95, but they tend to gouge on shipping so you may want to look elsewhere.

 

[AmberClad]

I think Nohr had it spot on, as far as the HD Audio outputs. There does seem to be the regular green/black/orange headphone-style connectors, plus the digital and coaxial S/PDIF. Unfortunately, my LCD TV only takes RCA or headphone inputs, not S/PDIF. But I was able to open up the audio panel in Windows and see the different outputs available.

But it turns out I was being a little bit of a noob. See, this board I'm using won't allow me to use the Intel GMA simultaneously with the GeForce. It's either one or the other. So I assumed that it'd be the same case with the HD Audio and the Audigy card, where only one can be used at any given time. That's not the case, as I found out while I was tinkering getting this setup to work (thanks to pkrush for the hint). So, after enabling both, there are actually four audio outputs available in the Vista sound panel:

- Speaker output (Audigy 2)
- S/PDIF output (Audigy 2)
- Speaker output (HD Audio)
- S/PDIF output (HD Audio)

Some caveats I noticed -- 1) the Audigy seems to be unable to output different sources on both speaker and S/PDIF simultaneously, 2) some programs automatically use the default Windows output, so this really requires a program where you can specify which output to use (Winamp allows it).

So in the end, I was able to get the Audigy outputting to the headphones, and the HD Audio outputting to the TV. If I had a device that could take S/PDIF input (maybe my stereo?), then I theoretically could have had a third output using the HD Audio S/PDIF, I think.

 

[DeadlyDav]

Apologies in advance for asking a basic question. But here goes.

I'm planning to get an XPS and I have a soundblaster XFi soundcard. I need to get one audio stream to 5.1 speakers and a second stream to a TV which just has scart and analogue co-axial cable inputs.

Any suggestions on how I can do I do it?