Soundcards with AC-3 Encoding

[n8d06]

I have been through many soundacrds with Dolby Digial Live encoding and have become frustrated with the lack of control they have over their audio output. I primarily use my HTPC for audio, and like to have the 2 channels upmixed to 5.1. The problem is, most cards give very poor control over how this is done. For example, you get to move virtual speakers around a virtual living room where the result is not quite what is desired. I don't like all the effects that these cards usually add to "enhance" the audio encoding.

What I have been doing recently is using AC3filter to encode my stereo audio to AC3. I love the AC3filter interface. No "enhancements". It does exactly what I want it to do.

The only problem with the AC3filter is latency. Since I use iTunes (some would surely consider me a loser), i have to jury-rig up a filter chain with a virtual soundcard in order to use AC3filter. I'd like to get rid of this.

So my long winded question is this: are there any soundcards that have an AC3filter-like interface for their "hardware" AC-3 encoders?

Specifically, all I want to do is have a matrix mixer to split the stereo channels up to the subwoofer, center and surrounds.

I would like to keep using SPDIF, but will gladly ditch it if there is only an analog card out there that does this with no noticeable latency.

Thanks for any info you can provide!!!!!!

 

[n8d06]

DTS:Neo PC

I been looking and supposedly the DTS Neo PC is simply a matrix upmix of 2 channel sound. Do any of the soundcards that support allow me to have control over the matrix mix?

For example, I want the subwoofer to be 50% of left and right, center to be about 60% of left and right, and the surrounds to be a percentage of each channel...

Thanks!!!

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

I can't answer your question, but I didn't want you to think that you were being ignored. Hopefully someone knowledgeable will see your thread soon and get you some good info.

 

[Mirko]

I don't know the answer to your question, but to ask you... What is your HTPC connected to?

If it's connected to a receiver, your receiver probably has Dolby Pro Logic II and/or DTS:NEO6, so you can send audio as 2 channel PCM over SPDIF and use one of those to upmix it to 5.1, and they give quite a bit of control over how it's done, so it could solve your problem. Hope it helps

 

[n8d06]

I don't know the answer to your question, but to ask you... What is your HTPC connected to?

If it's connected to a receiver, your receiver probably has Dolby Pro Logic II and/or DTS:NEO6, so you can send audio as 2 channel PCM over SPDIF and use one of those to upmix it to 5.1, and they give quite a bit of control over how it's done, so it could solve your problem. Hope it helps

Mirko,

Great point. I have come to realize that my receiver is not that good - it doesn;t give me many options, so I was trying to fix it using my PC. But, I think I would be better off using a receiver to do the upmixing.

Thanks!

 

[s162216]

Hi,

You do know that AC-3 is the same as Dolby Digital right? I use DD live and have absolutely no problem whatsoever.
Anyway back to your question, it would be best to stay with using ac-3 filter if your want to although a DD live sound card would do the job better as it does not use any more of the CPUs processing, it does it itself. You can then split it into the other channels with your receiver using Pro Logic, pretty much every one has this or DTS Neo:6 which is less common.

If your really want to, the best way of doing it is old but works the best. Get an old nforce2 motherboard with Nvidia Soundstorm. This does Dolby Digital Live and is highly configurable plus the SPDIF output of each board was calibrated by Dolby Labs for the very best digital sound. Theres absolutely no latency that I have ever seen or noticed because of this, just pure sound. Plus this is good if you want to play a game for instance which is encoded in surround sound and you want to do it over just one cable.

 

[Something_Soft]

Are there any Dolby Toslink laptop sound cards?

 

[Mirko]

Are there any Dolby Toslink laptop sound cards?

What do you mean by Dolby Tos-link? That means nothing... Tos-link or optical SPDIF is a connector, and Dolby is a company with little connection to that standard...

I suppose you mean a card that can bitstream Dolby Digital, I believe every card with Tos-link can do that.

And there are laptop soundcards with Tos-link, in USB and ExpressCard versions, from very basic to professional models, as an example (Creative was the first to come to my mind): Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1 (USB)