[Dradge]

Hi,

Today I have a Raspberry Pi Model B running OpenElec but I want to give a try to other hardware I have at home.

The hardware :

Motherboard : Minix 890GX-USB3
Cpu : AMD Athlon™ II X4 610e Processor
RAM : 4GB
Gpu : Radeon HD4290 DX10.1 graphics, UVD 2 (Motherboard integrated GPU)

I also have a crystalhd BCM970015 which can be connected on the motherboard back.

Does someone know what are the limits of this kind of hardware ?
Is it enough for 1080p decoding with DTS-HD/TrueHD audio ?
Should stick with Raspberry Pi or run with these other hardware ?

[trent33]

It will do 1080p, but not DTS-HD per http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboa...0gx_2.html

You don't even need the crystalhd card AFAICT

This hardware is overkill for XBMC and uses exponentially more electricity than the Pi. But if the Pi is insufficient (or you want to run XMBC on Windows), you'll need more power than the Pi can provide.

[Dougie Fresh]

The cheapest hardware is the hardware you already own. Drop a cheap HD5450 into it and you'll get HD audio bitstreaming for under $25.

[Dradge]

HD5450 seems good but I'm balanced with adding a DVB-T pci-e card on the slot and in the case I'm using, I'm a little scared about overheating.

From the HD4200 specs (HD4290 is an overclocked HD4200), it say :

Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support, enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution

So the HD4290 can do hardware AC3 decoding, right ?

But what happend if I play a file with DTS-HD/TrueHD audio ? I think it will be processed by the CPU ? And which audio codec the CPU will output ?

For the electricity usage, I'm asking all those questions because I'm merging my home made NAS with my xbmc box to have less cables around my tv and direct access to my media file without network. I also want to run aeon nox

EDIT:

If I buy a home cinema like this one with s/pdif, I will able to paththrough DTS-HD/TrueHD and don't have to do any decode on my HTPC right ? I just need to discover how s/pdif can be mapped to htpc hdmi...

[trent33]

You'll need HDMI to output DTS HD and possibly most/all other lossless HD audio formats beyond DD/AC3:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1420486/truehd...ver-s-pdif

I would not buy a receiver/home cinema that doesn't have at least 1 HDMI input. The Sony system you linked has none.

IIRC, XBMC will decode (transcode?) HD audio formats to something your receiver can handle (like AC3) once you set it up properly. If you get a receiver that can handle all of the formats you desire, you can bitstream the audio to the receiver for processing. From what I understand, you won't need the decoding capabilities on your HTPC in this case.

Then again, are you *really* going to hear the difference between DTS and DTS-HD? Depends on your audio system. Personally, I don't have a good enough audio system, but I like to bitstream anyways cuz I'm a nerd like that

[Dradge]

Ok, I will choose an other home cinema and go through hdmi for audio since I can paththrough DTS-HD even if GPU doesn't handle it.

[Meelisv]

No, even for passthrough you need a GPU or sound card that can do it. So GPU upgrade is needed anyway. All that provided that your sound system is/will be good enough that you can actually hear difference between DTS HD/ Dolby TrueHD and DTS core/AC3

[Dradge]

Thanks for all informations about how audio is working ! Transcoding audio to AC3 should be the best option to keep my dvb-T pci-e add-in card