2014-09-23, 11:26
(2014-09-23, 03:25)z31fanatic Wrote: Yeah, we should all run Android so we can only have legacy DD and DTS, or run Linux so we can go through a thousand steps to get HD audio.
Have you tried recent OpenElec builds? I've installed OpenElec - which is a light Linux distro optimised for XBMC - on both Intel and nVidia GPU based boxes and the installation is so much easier than Windows it's crazy. HD Audio is completely painless on both platforms.
It takes less than 5 minutes to install and once you are up and running you just select the correct HDMI audio device in SETTINGS->SYSTEM->AUDIO, enable passthrough and select DTS HD, Dolby True HD as supported passthrough codecs from within the GUI. (You may have to enable advanced/expert settings to see the passthrough options - again an option within the GUI) I have uninstalled Windows on my two main HTPC boxes and now just run OpenElec - it's so much less hassle. No annoying Windows updates... I'm also running OE on a couple of Chromeboxes - which are amazing with the new VAAPI deinterlacing builds of OE.
Of course there are perfectly valid reasons for running Windows on an HTPC (native Blu-ray support being an obvious one) - but I don't think the HD Audio issue alone is a reason to bash Linux when OE does such a great job of supporting it.
(Android on the other hand appears to be a bit of a work-in-progress for anyone who cares about AV quality - deinterlacing, HD Audio bit streaming, dynamic refresh rate switching etc. all appear to be issues.)