I feel horrible for blaming Vista (and SageTV) for MY video issues

[mkanet]

I also have a multichannel Realtek HD audio adapter on motherboard feeding into my new display card. However, I dont have a multichannel HDMI receiver to know if I'd just get SPDIF 5.1 passed-through or not.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

this thread is totally off topic now, This AVR is hooked up to my vista client anyway. Incidentally my mother board has a realtek HD audio adapter on it with 8 channels. I doubt that it has very good quality DAC's being OEM but it might be worth a try. How do I know what drivers to look for re: avoiding downsampling?

[Humanzee]

I'm just now downloading the realtek high definition audio codec from the realtek website. Not sure what that means, I think it is just a driver set. I am about to go down to the big box computer store and buy four sets of headphone to RCA cables to plug it all into my reciever. I'm worried though because before I bought this external amp and went with optical, I was getting some wicked background noises via analog, like a squeeking when I would move the mouse etc. Hopefully Vista SP1 and the latest Realtek driver will fix that else I guess its a problem with the on board audio. I'm going to look at Blueray drives and sound cards while im down there. Anybody know of any clip content that I could download to test 7.1 sound?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

this thread is totally off topic now, This AVR is hooked up to my vista client anyway. Incidentally my mother board has a realtek HD audio adapter on it with 8 channels. I doubt that it has very good quality DAC's being OEM but it might be worth a try. How do I know what drivers to look for re: avoiding downsampling?

The whole downsampling "issue" is WAY overblown IMO. The issue is that AACS requires audio to be reduced to no greater than 16bit/48kHz if the audio path is not secure.

However movie soundtracks that are greater than 48kHz are basically unheard of. Now movie soundtracks do often have a greater bit depth than 16, often 20 or 24 bits. But even at that most hardware has trouble resolving even 16-bits, and then there's the room, which is nowhere close to resolving 16 bits.

Originally Posted by Humanzee

I'm just now downloading the realtek high definition audio codec from the realtek website. Not sure what that means, I think it is just a driver set.

"HD Audio" is Intel's name for the replacement for AC97.