5870 HDMI audio output FYI

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LanceDiamond

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
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Ok, I did better with my Google-fu on this one... ;)

My previous card was a BFG 260-896OCE. The BFG says it's "HDMI Capable" which, when I installed that card concerned me a little. HDMI Capable, as it turned out, meant the card came with a small 2 pin cable to connect to a soundcard internally. Once I connected that cable, I had sound via my HDMI display (a Vizio 37in LCD TV) and the PC speakers at the same time.

So...all was well and the Vizio had surprisingly good sounding speakers. Often, if I was listening to music I'd turn the Vizio on in addition to the PC speakers+sub and it sounded very good.

Upgrading to the 5870 has apparently cost me the ability to have the same audio coming from the PC speakers and the LCD TV at the same time. :(

The 5870 has no need for a plug on it for HDMI audio. It installs a sound playback device called "ATI HDMI Output". This device winds up being set to the default during install of the Catalyst drivers. So right after installing Catalyst, I had no sound at all through the PC speakers. Going back into Playback devices and making Speakers the default fixed that but stopped audio from the 37in LCD TV speakers.

Thankfully, PowerDVD allows you to specify it should use HDMI for playback of Blu-Ray movies. I can't find anywhere in Media Player under Vista to specify that but I read that Windows 7's Media Player does allow it. Vista Media Player just plays through whatever the default device is - either Speakers or ATI HDMI Output - but not both.

From what I was able to find via Google, it seems Windows does not support simultaneous output to multiple playback devices, despite demand for that feature. Guess I had it accidentally with the BFG card because it was just pulling audio straight from the sound card and sticking it on the HDMI cable.

I am liking the 5870 and trying to figure out what I'll do with the added display flexibility but having audio output from the HDMI display and PC attached speakers (X-Fi attached to Bose w/sub) at the same time is a feature I may miss. I do now have the ability to have two different audio streams going but that just means they drown each other out.
 
Maybe the Auzentech HDMI card would work for you.

Or an external receiver.

Hopefully though, someone will have a way to get this working for you.
 
I can't imagine there would be much demand for the "feature" you're describing. Even the best, most expensive flat panel TVs have relatively crappy speakers. Most people would rather send all audio from their PC or HTPC to a 5.1 or 7.1 setup and keep the TV muted if they have the option. My HTPC passes 7.1 audio over HDMI via an ATI 4600 to a receiver and then to my TV. I wouldn't want to hear the sound coming out of my TV at the same time as the surround speakers. It wouldn't sound nearly as nice.

As an aside, I'm looking at upgrading the graphics card in the HTPC to a 5770 when they come out because that will finally let me bitstream DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD over HDMI to my sound system without forking over $200 for a sound card. That feature alone is enough to get me really excited about these new ATI cards.
 
go into control panel and change the output device to the HDMI option
 
Well, you got it right - they are considered different audio devices (not just audio outputs), so you won't be able to get the same audio from both devices at the same time.

The reason why everyone is making a big deal of the 5000 series being able to pipe audio through HDMI is that it is the only solution that keep that HDCP protection path, which means it can finally bitstream Dolby Digital True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio to your receiver for true lossless audio.

While I understand that it was nice to have both your internal TV speakers and external speakers workign together, I don't understand why anyone would want it. It really ruins positional audio and distorts the sound image - yes, even simple 2 channel stereo sound.

I'm not sure what your budget is or the environment you're in, but would it be so bad to have the audio to come out of just the external speakers? They usually sound better than the built-in TV speakers anyways (unless you cheap out on those, lol).

I am waiting for an EVEN CHEAPER 5k series card that offer this feature, since I really want it on my HTPC. Right now, I have a GF 8400 with an internal SPDIF connection like your previous set up. It works just fine, and my audio set up isn't all that great, so I'm not going to miss much going lossless.

I hope AMD will create a chipset with a 5k series IGP specifcally for HTPC builds.
 
naddie said:
The reason why everyone is making a big deal of the 5000 series being able to pipe audio through HDMI is that it is the only solution that keep that HDCP protection path, which means it can finally bitstream Dolby Digital True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio to your receiver for true lossless audio.
Click to expand...

With regard to missing the 'feature', I didn't really miss it very long. It was just something that had worked and stopped and initially I felt like it was a loss. Once I figured out I could set PowerDVD to pipe it's audio through the TV when playing a Blu-Ray, I was basically happy. I do have very good PC speakers and I'm happy with them. This setup is in an office, so the TV is primaryily for watching some random TV show or sometimes playing a game but not for serious movie watching.

I do have a question about the comment of yours above: Were cards prior to the 5000 series incapable of just piping sound over HDMI? So my old setup with the NV 260 and the little 2 cable connector wasn't maintaining HDCP? I might not have noticed since I have AnyDVD HD - but what you're saying makes sense. That being the case, for a HTPC setup, the 5000 series would be great right? The alternative being sound coming from a Blu-Ray, being processed by the PC, piped to a soundcard and then kludged back onto the HDMI with an adapter like I mentioned - and that might not even be possible without something like AnyDVD right?
 
The 4000 series did it because AFAIK, it's possible on XP for any card. Vista and 7 are limited to one audio output at a time. It's not so much a hardware limitation.

It bothered me at first, but it's not that big of a deal. I don't see much of an advantage in having dual output.
 
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