Dolby Digital with X-Fi

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Obi_Kwiet

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Dec 25, 2004
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Alright, I've been trying to get 5.1 audio to work with my X-Fi premium and Z-5500s for a while now. I have VLC and K-Lite with windows media player classic. I've been fooling with it for a while but I can't get the darn thing to work. Everything's set to 5.1 everywhere I can find to set it, but all it get is stereo output with anything I try. Do I need to use SPDIF to get DD 5.1? How do I configure this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The closest I got was using SPDIF with a PCM 2/0 stream on the Pro Logic setting on my z5500s, but I want real 5.1!
 
SPDIF is only 2 channels PCM unless the sound is encoded into DDL or DTS by a sound card or transmitted directly in encoded format from CD/DVD. Only Auzen cards and couple of realtec HD codecs can encode 5.1 channels on the fly.
 
that is correct. I am buying a new dolby digital live card as we speak. stupid creative
 
auzentech just released their official dolby digital live drivers for their X-Fi prelude.
 
Your best bet for now is to just use the 5.1 analog connections. Then you can get 5.1 without having to real time encode to DD/DTS
 
schapman said:
Your best bet for now is to just use the 5.1 analog connections. Then you can get 5.1 without having to real time encode to DD/DTS
Click to expand...

Really? Cause I haven't had much success getting 5.1 analog either. Is there some way to do that if the file uses AC3?
 
someone tried to convert the auzentech regular X-Fi drivers (before DDL was released) for other creative cards but found that the speakers were messed up like center was rear surround etc. After he tried for awhile he just gave up so I doubt someone can convert the DDL drivers for use with other X-Fi cards if just the regular driver was so hard to do.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
Really? Cause I haven't had much success getting 5.1 analog either. Is there some way to do that if the file uses AC3?
Click to expand...

Yes. AC3 is simply the name of the codec used to compress Dolby Digital streams. If you have a file that is encoded with it -- as many DVD rips are -- you should be able to get 5.1 output even with your SPDIF connection. What you need to do is tell the sound card not to decode the DD signal and pass it on to your speakers. I believe there is a SPDIF bypass option in the X-Fi control panel. You only need to use the analog connections if you wish to get 5.1 sound from games, barring the purchase of a new sound card or peripheral to encode it for you.
 
Auzentech's Dolby Digital Live implementation isn't a pure software design. They had to design the hardware with the ability to have sound go out to the card, be processed by creative's audio processor, come back to the operating system for the drivers to wrap the sound in a dolby digital format, send that back to the card to be outputted through the SPDIF port.

I think the X-Fi's can do passthrough Dolby Digital though. As Auric said you'll need to find the right setting, and it'll only work for movies; not games. For games you will have to hook up the analog connections. According to Logitech's website your speakers have:
"6 channel direct (3 stereo-mini connectors) for 2, 4, or 6 channel PC sound cards"

That's the hook up you should do so you get 5.1 in games/movies/etc.
 
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