DVD Player and PC Speakers

[indigo]

Ok I'm not quite sure if this is the right place to ask this but why not?
What I want to do is take the DolbyDigital from the optical out on my DVD player and put it through a sound card and have it spit out in the usual surround speaker connectors (the headphone jacks for center/sub, fl/fr, rl/rr) How would I go about doing this do I just need a card with optical in or do I need something more complicated such as software, etc.
Thanks, indigo

[stanger89]

Short answer is what you want to do is very difficult, PC soundcards/software isn't designed to decode AC3 (Dolby Digital) from external sources. I would suggest you simply play the DVDs on your PC, that is very easy and all the popular software DVD players can do that.

-edit

FWIW, what you describe is very closely related to the "HTPC as a Pre/Pro" concept:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...highlight=time

[indigo]

Originally posted by stanger89
Short answer is what you want to do is very difficult, PC soundcards/software isn't designed to decode AC3 (Dolby Digital) from external sources. I would suggest you simply play the DVDs on your PC, that is very easy and all the popular software DVD players can do that.

If I were to go this way the problem becomes video-out can most video cards put out full DVD quality video?
P.S. I have a GeForce 4000MX this is sort of in between the 440MX and the FX5200
Thanks for the quick response, indigo

[stanger89]

Depends on your display, on my HDTV my Radeon 9500 blows away my Pioneer Elite DV-C36 (progressive) and by all indications the Geforce FX and 6 series may be even better. On and SDTV it would be close.

[indigo]

Originally posted by stanger89
Depends on your display, on my HDTV my Radeon 9500 blows away my Pioneer Elite DV-C36 (progressive) and by all indications the Geforce FX and 6 series may be even better. On and SDTV it would be close.

I have an SDTV so I'll give it a shot
Thanks again for responding so quickly, indigo