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what is DDL or dolby encoding anyways?

O

oROEchimaru

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the new HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 card has dolby encoding. what exactly does this do over the optical spdif out cables?

how would this compared to any other spdf optical sound cards? i mean... will it take divx files and mp3s and up-convert them into surround sound? or... what exactly is it doing?

i guess i'm just a little confused on why everyone thinks this is a requirement for an HTPC computer. but would like to know more and maybe get one if i see why!
 
Enjoy audio from your PC or game console through your home theater with Dolby® Digital Live. A real-time encoding technology, Dolby Digital Live converts any audio signal into a Dolby Digital bitstream for transport and playback through a home theater system. With it, your PC or game console can be hooked up to your Dolby Digital-equipped audio/video receiver or digital speaker system via a single digital connection, eliminating the confusion of multiple cables and ensuring the integrity of the audio signal.

The real-time interactive capabilities of Dolby Digital Live technology are ideally suited to PCs and video game consoles because it reproduces audio cues and effects that follow the on-screen action, transforming gameplay into an exciting and realistic entertainment experience.

Systems using Dolby Digital Live technology can provide Dolby Digital (5.1-channel surround sound) during gameplay, immersing players in high-quality surround sound that puts them at the center of the action. Gamers hear every window shatter, feel every explosion, and experience every wipeout.

Dolby Digital Live technology is integrated into the motherboard audio chipsets of many high-performance PCs. These PCs provide an S/PDIF connector and use a digital cable for one-step connection to a home theater system. Dolby Digital Live can also enable other future entertainment capabilities on the PC because of its ability to deliver any audio source via a single digital interface to an existing home theater system.
 
Nice cut and paste =]

What DDL does is encode anything into a Dolby Digital signal and send it out digitally over SPDIF. It basically lets you string one wire to your receiver vs the normal 6 you'd have to for the same features. I'm sure that it probably includes some features to fake surround sound from two-channel sources, but I wouldn't want it to do that myself.
 
It's also much cheaper. High end cables are expensive. 1 digital optical or coaxial cable in much cheaper than 6 high quality coaxial cables
 
anyone have a place where i can find out which motherboards currently support DDL?
 
I think Asus is coming with a few HDA boards, I think they're P5 something model that have DDL with the intel 900's chipsets.

As for socket A, theres Soundstorm boards, but I have never seen them refered to as DDL, even though they do pretty much the same thing, with the exception that the APU itself generates another few channels
 
anyone know if ddl improves divx? my resciever is blown so i can't test anything. i wonder if it makes a difference over optical, for mp3s and divx.
 
Regarding quality, you can't polish a turd. That said, any decent sound implementation will let you matrix out a stereo source.
 
so that means it wont upconvert crappy stuff to 5.1? such as mp3s which are stereo?
 
jroe52 said:
so that means it wont upconvert crappy stuff to 5.1? such as mp3s which are stereo?
Click to expand...
Any recent receiver within the last several years has built-in functionality to turn stereo audio in surround audio, such as with DD Prologic II or DTS Neo, etc. Though how good they sound is debatable. You don't need to further reduce the quality of compressed audio of MP3s with DD compression.
 
wait a min, wait a min. so you guys are telling me that if hooking some analog 5.1 speakers to encoding, then having them decoded via a hometheatre receiver will NOT produce discrete 5.1 signals for 2.1 sources like videos?
 
What is the receiver? It is typically its job to matrix out two channel content. Prologic, Prologic II, Circlesurround, CS II, DTS:Neo, and Logic 7 just a few of the many algorithms that can be applied to a two channel source to matrix it out over 5.1 channels (or more).
 
Is it correct that a SPDIF or optical cable can handle an uncompressed stereo signal? If so, do DDL implementations still convert stereo-only signals to DD despite being completely unnecessary?
 
Will the hda digital x-mystique actually convert 5.1 sound from games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 to Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1 for home theater receivers?

Has anyone actually tried this?
-Ed
 
SockMan! said:
Is it correct that a SPDIF or optical cable can handle an uncompressed stereo signal? If so, do DDL implementations still convert stereo-only signals to DD despite being completely unnecessary?
Click to expand...

SPDIF supports uncompressed stereo, I've done it up to 192khz/24bit before. I have no idea whether it will convert stereo-only signals, but I sure hope that it doesn't.
 
Edwood said:
Will the hda digital x-mystique actually convert 5.1 sound from games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 to Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1 for home theater receivers?

Has anyone actually tried this?
-Ed
Click to expand...

I'm sure that they have.. that's the only reason to buy the damn card =]
 
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