Getting my facts straight regarding HD Audio
#1
Ok, so I'm in the process of building myself a new HTPC. I am going to use Windows and a Geforce 460 card, which supports bitstreaming HD audio through hdmi.

Now, all the different versions have me a bit lost, especially now that I see DSPlayer is dead.

This is what I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong:

DSPlayer: Not being developed anylonger, so I should not count on this one.

"Regular" XBMC build: Does not support bitstreaming, however it can decode TrueHD and DTS-MA, but it will then only be 5.1 channels? (I am unsure about this one, can it do 7.1 PCM? I've read that it can pass 7.1 flac).

AudioEngine branch: Up and coming branch that will have hd bitstreaming, although in an early alpha stage so far.

https://github.com/tiben20/xbmc: The info seems scarse so far on this one, so I am not sure what to expect in terms of a timeframe for something usable.

Have I gotten the facts right?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers.
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#2
Yes - but with the exception of 7.1 PCM - don't have a system with that config to test - 5.1 only so can't say for definite that it works or not.

Don't think the Tiben hybrid is close to being useful at the moment, though I'd be happy for Tiben to prove otherwise.
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#3
phunqe Wrote:"Regular" XBMC build: Does not support bitstreaming, however it can decode TrueHD and DTS-MA, but it will then only be 5.1 channels? (I am unsure about this one, can it do 7.1 PCM? I've read that it can pass 7.1 flac).

No, this is a bit off. It cannot decode DTS-HDMA at all. It can decode/passthrough the core DTS that is part of the DTS-HDMA track though. As for TrueHD, it can decode that properly and send it to your receiver as 7.1 PCM with no loss in quality which is nice.
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#4
mitul103 Wrote:No, this is a bit off. It cannot decode DTS-HDMA at all. It can decode/passthrough the core DTS that is part of the DTS-HDMA track though. As for TrueHD, it can decode that properly and send it to your receiver as 7.1 PCM with no loss in quality which is nice.

Almost, 24 bit true hd will be converted to 16 bit resulting in a slight loss of AQ.
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#5
mariyoshikong Wrote:Almost, 24 bit true hd will be converted to 16 bit resulting in a slight loss of AQ.

Is that because of XBMC or something else? As far as I know the Geforce 4xx cards that do HD audio passthrough all support 24-bit 192KHz 7.1 PCM.
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#6
Yes. Xbmc currently converts everything to 16 bit. A fix for this situation is being worked on in the audio engine branch.
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#7
Thank you all for the info Smile
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Getting my facts straight regarding HD Audio0