Digital Audio and my Receiver

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2 questions here:

1) i am ordering a home theater setup for my room. the receiver has optical and coax input. i would like to send a digital signal from my sound card to the receiver. will this work as long as my sound card supports S/P DIF out? HTIB: Sony HT-DDW670 and at CC: Sony 670 @ CC

2) which soundcard do you guys recommend: SoundBlaster Audigy ZS Notebook or Gainward Music2Go

im going to assume most of you will recommend the Audigy, but i do have a relatively small budget. the Gainward seems like a nice card. self-powered USB2, optical out, 7.1. according to reviews, its an excellent card.

so all i need to know for certain is that i can run an optical cable from the soundcard (whichever one i pick) to the receiver for true 5.1 playback, and which soundcard to buy. i really like the gainward for the price. plus ive heard some not so good things about the audigy.
 
the audigy2 will only do Digital 5.1 if the source is already encoded..

you an run an optical and run most sound through it but unless it is already encoded in DD5.1 it will come through as dolby prologic II (Stereo)..

the only option you'd have to get 5.1 for all your sound sources is to run the 6 channel analogue outputs into the 6 analogue inputs

see the thread in this forum about hte PCI Dolby Digital Live 5.1 for more info about the only soundcard (coming out soon hopefully) that can encode a DD5.1 stream apart from some onboard soundcards..
 
well, the only 5.1 im going to be listenin to is the occasional movie and any games that support 5.1. the main games i play are CoD, Joint Ops, UT2K4, Halo, and NFSU2.

if they support 5.1, would running the optical cable to the receiver have those games playing in 5.1? and the same question goes for the movies.

i dont even think that the receiver has 6 analog inputs.... ill check that...
 
the movies will come through as 5.1 because they are arleady encoded for dolby digital 5.1 and the soundcard simply passes that through directly to the receiver..

the games support 5.1 via EAX or DirectSound..

the 5.1 EAX or Directsound from games has to be encoded into DolbyDigital 5.1 for your receiver to play it in 5.1, currently the audigy2 doesn't do that..

your games would come through as 2channel stereo via the dolby prologic..

the only soundcard that you can('t) buy is the HDA Mystique 7.1.. this card has the Dolby Digital Live encoding that does exactly what you are looking for..

encoding your computer sounds (Games) that are not in a DD5.1 stream to DD5.1 on the fly..


last word is the card is coming out in the next week or 2 (or at least there are high hopes that is when it will come out)..
 
well id love to get it, but this is for my lappy, so i dont have any PCI slots at my disposal.

aight, so movies: check. its the games that wont work. but what if i somehow managed to use the analog? then would i be able to get 5.1 on games?

do you know if the Music2Go or any other sound card for less than $90 is capable of encoding DD5.1 games on the fly?
 
the only other DD5.1 encoding solutions are onboard..

the Nforce2 has the onboard soundstorm and i believe there is an Intel onboard sound option..

but nothing as far as addon cards go.
 
o well. ill take what i can get.

i just wanted to get the details about my multiple forms of audio and how theyll play on the receiver.

and youre sure that i can just buy one of the cards, take the optical cable i got from my desktop's soundcard, and just run that from the S/PDIF output to the optical input on the receiver?

the receiver can also do a 'virtual surround sound' also, by sending some of the signal to the rear speakers, i guess.

i was testing out the system at circuit city using my ipod and itrip (over the radio), and i was able to get 5.1 from the radio. of course it isnt gonna be as effective as true 5.1 on games, but, heck, why not have some fun!

EDIT: on the gainward details page, near the bottom it says that the sound card's software includes Dolby® Digital Real-Time content encoder. or at least its optional. would that help me w/ 5.1 in games?
 
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