Asus board and HDTV AC3 audio stuttering

[phelme]

I have what appears to be an AC3 issue with the built-in ADI AD1986A audio on my Asus M2NPV-VM equipped HTPCs. (FYI, using analog out)

on HDTV shows like Grey's Anatomy (which I've recorded from an HDHomeRun box) there are these occasional audio drops. They only appear to happen on loud passages, for example, when that show is about to go to commercial break, they often have the same loud music passage. what I get on my HTPC's with the M2NPV-VM in them is a stutter on the audio. it's very predictable and repeatable. it doesn't happen in Sage on my HTPC that has a different motherboard, so it's not in the stream itself.

Oh yeah... here is the other thing, it *only* happens with Sage. If I play the file with VLC or WMP, it doesn't happen.

I'm pretty sure I have the latest drivers, at least what Asus recommends. I do use AC3Filter as well, but it doesn't matter whether or not it's selected in Sage. and for those thinking it might be related to driving full screen video (via the 6150), it doesn't matter what size the SageTV window is.

I am trying the latest beta of Sage 6.1.6 but no joy.

has anyone else had this issue and found a solution for it? ...ahem, aside from getting a new audio card.

do I need to do more sleuthing with GraphEdit or something?

thanks!

[OttoNP]

I'd check that you are using the same decoders for sage and wmp. This should occur if you decoder is set to default in sage.