DTS Audio Question?

[usaf-lt-g]

Hey Guys,

Another question in relation to this new MD. Again, it's built on the VIA CN700T Motherboard. Audio says it's a "Flexible 8-Channel" Audio with Jack-Sensing, however, my understanding was that if you have a DTS AV Receiver, you could hook up your MD right to that, and voila, you now have DTS Enabled Media (assuming the media is DTS).

From past experience though, my understanding was that you could only achieve DTS sound through either a Digital Audio cable, or a Digital Coax cable. Is that true? The board doesn't have a pin configuration anywhere for SPDI/F out, and the audio outputs are standard 3.5mm stereo jacks.

The board does have 1 available PCI slot for an expansion board... though i'm unsure how exactly I'd get that to fit in the case I have.

What are my options here?

[colinjones]

If you have the 8 separate outs as 3.5mm jacks then that is where it will pipe your decoded DTS/DD audio to as analogue signals. Hook that up to separate ins on an amp and you should have it. Don't know how well the LMCE software will know how to configure for this, but I'm assuming it will be automatic just like if you had an SPDIF. Other than that, there is no way to get DTS/DD through analogue 2 channel (left/right) so your amp needs to have all the analogue inputs for surround. Also, you might want to use alsamixer and confirm that the IEC(blah) channel over to the right isn't muted as I think this is where it "mutes" the DTS/DD decoding.

[usaf-lt-g]

Yea damn... it's just 1 standard 3.5mm out. Not 8... say's it's a flexible 8 channel... but crap. Don't they make 3.5mm to Optical jacks? I thought they did anyways...

[colinjones]

For them to say that they have 8 channel audio (implying 7.1 surround) there has to be either 8 analogue outs or 1 digital out otherwise it is clear false advertising! Take a look at the literature again and try to find any caveats - perhaps the SPDIF is just a motherboard header? If so, you need to get an SPDIF transducer, connect this to the mobo header and mount it on the back panel somewhere... et voila!

[usaf-lt-g]

No I checked the Mobo for that early on... an SPDIF... no header. Box says Audio supports 7.1 channel AC'97 Audio. It's got the 3 standard 3.5mm audio inputs, the Mic In, Line In, Speaker Out/Line Out.

Do they make a cheap USB type Audio Card that has SPDIF out? I mean the box is gonna be too small to add a card to it.

[usaf-lt-g]

Actually... What about this? The Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit External USB Sound Card.

Has an optical Audio output on it, and connects via USB... would that work?

[colinjones]

In theory that's the right type of thing, you'll have to see if anybody else has had any experience with it and knows if it is compatible. Only thing I would say is that if it doesn't have a proper hardware mixer this could cause problems with the AppServer in current releases, although I think that is going to be resolved in the release of 0710. You might want to look on their web site and make sure it has drivers for Ubuntu 0710/the current Linux kernel...