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When will sound cards start using HDMI ?

R

rabident

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2004
Messages
300
With HDMI you can run 1 cable for audio that carries 8 channels of high resolution PCM audio to a receiver. It's a digital connection too which has several benefits. I know most sound cards today support Coax/Optical digital output, but it's only for 2 channel PCM, or as a pass-through for pre-recorded AC-3 / DTS from DVD's.

I remember Nvidia use to have a chipset that would encode AC-3 on the fly do you could output 5.1 channels digitally, but that's also less than optimal because AC-3 is a lossy compression scheme.

PCI vs PCIe doesn't make a difference, but how about upgrading the digital connection used for output? Sound cards have supported 6 - 8 channels of sound for almost 10 years, but the whole time we've only had a maximum of 2 channels of PCM supported over the digital outputs. I would really like to see soundcard's digital outputs upgraded to support 8 channels of high resolution PCM. HDMI is the de facto industry standard, meaning most new audio gear will support the connection as input... we just need sound card manufactuers to offer the output.
 
I didn't know they had a licensing fee, good to know, would be interested in when a sound card would support that though, wouldn't be a bad addon.
 
@rabident, The X-Tension board for the X-Meridian has a proprietary connector that sends 8 channels of discrete 24/192 digital audio. We think they will be using this connector for their use when adding other devices to the card. It's hard to say right now what it will be used for. Their are a few ideas around from info from the company aswell as a few DIY ideas also.
 
Inevitably someone will offer it, we're just about as likely to get this feature on video cards first as we are on a soundcard tho. The graphics board makers are already shipping cards with HDMI it shouldn't take much to add audio capabilities onboard.

The licencing fees are not insignificant but shouldn't be prohibitive for companies selling either expensive or high volumes of cards, or both(i'm looking at you creative). From the HDMI website:

Annual Fee
HDMI Adopters must pay an annual fee of fifteen thousand dollars (US$15,000).
Click to expand...

Royalty
HDMI is available for a reasonable royalty rate as follows:

For each end-user Licensed Product, fifteen cents (US$0.15) per unit sold.
If the Adopter reasonably uses the HDMI logo on the product and promotional materials, then the rate drops to five cents (US$0.05) per unit sold.
If the Adopter implements HDCP content protection as set forth in the HDMI Specification, then the royalty rate is further reduced by one cent (US $.01) per unit sold, for a lowest rate of four cents (.04) per unit. Adopters must license HDCP separately from Digital Content Protection, LLC, an Intel subsidiary. Please see www.digital-cp.com for details.
Click to expand...
 
The fee is 4cents per product sold, that hardly seems like a high licensing fee. This hardly seems like something high priced.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2097340,00.asp

I would assume this source is at least pretty accurate having talked to some head guy at HDMI whatever corp they have or what not. Pretty interesting read non the less, i believe the 4cent quote is on the 2nd page.
 
squeezee said:
Inevitably someone will offer it, we're just about as likely to get this feature on video cards first as we are on a soundcard tho. The graphics board makers are already shipping cards with HDMI it shouldn't take much to add audio capabilities onboard.

The licencing fees are not insignificant but shouldn't be prohibitive for companies selling either expensive or high volumes of cards, or both(i'm looking at you creative). From the HDMI website:
Click to expand...

Hehehe! NO! Those bastards are robbing folks LOL! As long as the appropriate Protected Paths are protected this (moving to HDMI) should happen fairly quick. Coming to SFF MCE, AMD Live, V-Pro and V//V as we speak.
 
Figured I'd check in 2 years later and see if any progress has been made.

I'm guessing Creative has been pushing the envelope as usual. I can now simulate my MP3's being played in 2,000 different shower stalls across the globe, but still no support for 5.1+ lossless digital output?
 
rabident said:
Figured I'd check in 2 years later and see if any progress has been made.

I'm guessing Creative has been pushing the envelope as usual. I can now simulate my MP3's being played in 2,000 different shower stalls across the globe, but still no support for 5.1+ lossless digital output?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Just imagine what things would be like had they not sued Aureal out of business....
 
It will happen once the HDMI bastards finally make up their mind and stop 'updating' the HDMI format so that soundcard manufacturers don't have to update it every couple months. It's the same with receiver and processor manufacturers. There really aren't that many that support HDMI because we've gone through so many goddamn formats of HDMI (i.e. 1.1, 1.3a, 1.3c, etc.)
 
Surly73 said:
Thus the advent of DisplayPort which is royalty-free.
Click to expand...

Be interesting to see where things stand in another two years, now that we have displayport. Unfortunately, S/PDIF is entrenched, and supports everything except TrueHD/PCM. It will be difficult to displace.
 
Do sound cards even really need HDMI? The whole point of a sound card is good quality analog sound. Once you go digital it doesn't really matter.

I think what we really need is HDMI audio on all video cards/on board chipsets, which is becoming more popular. They just need to ensure they all support full blown 7.1
 
Dephcon said:
Do sound cards even really need HDMI? The whole point of a sound card is good quality analog sound. Once you go digital it doesn't really matter.

I think what we really need is HDMI audio on all video cards/on board chipsets, which is becoming more popular. They just need to ensure they all support full blown 7.1
Click to expand...

From my understanding you do need HDMI, in order for blu-ray to play back Dolby True HD and DTS HD. As of this moment Asus XONAR HDAV 1.3 along with Total Media Theatre 3 Platinum are the only way to to get high definition sound through your computer.

Without these 2 factors, playing blu-ray, is downsampled to a lower sound. Actually I think you need 3 factors, a receiver also (but I am not sure on that one).

My next build I am looking at the Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe and using the recently release Onkyo TX-SR507 receiver. All to play blu-ray through our computers.
 
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tronmaster said:
From my understanding you do need HDMI, in order for blu-ray to play back Dolby True HD and DTS HD.
Click to expand...

I'm not arguing that you need HDMI, but does it really need to be on the sound card? As soon as all the HDMI video cards support TrueHD and DTS MA they'll be no need for HDMI on soundcards.
 
tronmaster said:
From my understanding you do need HDMI, in order for blu-ray to play back Dolby True HD and DTS HD. As of this moment Asus XONAR HDAV 1.3 along with Total Media Theatre 3 Platinum are the only way to to get high definition sound through your computer.

Without these 2 factors, playing blu-ray, is downsampled to a lower sound. Actually I think you need 3 factors, a receiver also (but I am not sure on that one).

My next build I am looking at the Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe and using the recently release Onkyo TX-SR507 receiver. All to play blu-ray through our computers.
Click to expand...

Correct.

There are 2 problems playing back protected Hi Def audio from Blu Ray films on a PC.
1) the hi def tracks wont be used unless there is a protected audio path, Windows XP and Vista dont have a PAP.
2) all the software Blu Ray players downsample all protected HiDef audio regardless of whether there is a protected audio path or not, except for the new Total Media Theatre 3.

So you need a soundcard that provides a PAP and Total Media Theatre 3.
The Asus HDAV 1.3 is the only card available now that can do this and comes free with Total Media Theatre 3.
http://www.dvhardware.net/article27745.html
 
Maybe this suggestion is not applicable, but does it make any difference if you use AnyDVD HD? I know that it breaks free 1080p playback from the certified display requirement. Maybe it also breaks the audio requirement at the same time?
 
seemlessthunder said:
Maybe this suggestion is not applicable, but does it make any difference if you use AnyDVD HD? I know that it breaks free 1080p playback from the certified display requirement. Maybe it also breaks the audio requirement at the same time?
Click to expand...

It allows the BD film to be played but does not give a protected audio path.
 
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