Pink Floyd, DTS, Soundstorm and digital receiver...

[mito]

Introduction: I have this nf2 mb, soundstorm and a digital receiver. It's working fine, it plays a music demo (5.1 format) from nvidia. All channels work fine, even in games. DVD plays ok (Dolby Digital and DTS).
The motherboard's coax SPDIF OUT is connecting to my receiver's spdif IN.

problem:I've got these FLAC audio files. (Dark Side of the Moon).

I'm using Winamp.
I set my digital receiver to DTS. No sound comes out.
If I set the receiver to IN-AUTO or IN-PCM, I hear white noise.
I thought the receiver would automatically recognize the DTS signals and play accordingly.


Note: The same happened in the past when I had some WAV files which were supposed to be in DTS format. I burnt them in a CD as WAV.


What's wrong?

 

[_xxx_]

The original signal stereo only maybe?

 

[mito]

The original signal stereo only maybe?

Sorry, I didn't understand.

 

[mito]

When in DTS mode, the receiver also displays ST (which I suppose means stereo). But no sound comes out.

 

[pcchen]

Did you set the audio card to SPDIF bypass mode? Some audio chips like to mangle with your audio data and, of course, will destroy AC3 or DTS signals.

 

[mito]

Did you set the audio card to SPDIF bypass mode? Some audio chips like to mangle with your audio data and, of course, will destroy AC3 or DTS signals.

Not yet... I'll try that later. Thanks. I also found this relevant topic. I'll post results later on.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20729&highlight=DTS+winamp

 

[JBark]

You might have to change the sound output plugin to one of the other ones, maybe the DirectSound one? I haven't used winamp in a while, but I seem to remember I had to change something to get it to work correctly my soundstorm digitial out.

Also, I don't think I had this problem using Windows Media Player, but I'm not sure if the FLAC driver works with WMP.

 

[kyleb]

Seems to me that what is being delt with here is files encoded in FLAC or WAV from a DTS source, eh? So wouldn't a PC would have to rencode them to DTS for the recever to recognise them as such, where soundstorm doesn't support realtime DTS encoding? Am I missing something?

 

[mito]

Seems to me that what is being delt with here is files encoded in FLAC or WAV from a DTS source, eh? So wouldn't a PC would have to rencode them to DTS for the recever to recognise them as such, where soundstorm doesn't support realtime DTS encoding? Am I missing something?

Yes, those files were encoded from a DTS source.

Actually Soundstorm doesn't have to encode anything, just pass along the data stream to the receiver, just as it would have done with a DVD.

I'm not sure about the FLAC format, but the WAV files I have are supposed to contain the DTS data... The receiver should recognize this automatically, but it isn't.

I'm about to perform some tests here.

 

[mito]

Did you set the audio card to SPDIF bypass mode? Some audio chips like to mangle with your audio data and, of course, will destroy AC3 or DTS signals.

Not sure how to do this. There are no similar options in the Nvidia control panel or anywhere else. Perhaps Winamp has something.

 

[Bolloxoid]

If I set the receiver to IN-AUTO or IN-PCM, I hear white noise.
I thought the receiver would automatically recognize the DTS signals and play accordingly.

In order to play DTS-encoded sources, your sound card needs to support bit-perfect digital output (i.e. no resampling to 48 kHz on the way). Otherwise, you are out of luck.

Using wave files containing DTS-encoded material is actually a good way of testing whether your sound card is resampling internally.

 

[Bolloxoid]

So wouldn't a PC would have to rencode them to DTS for the recever to recognise them as such, where soundstorm doesn't support realtime DTS encoding? Am I missing something?

The point is to retain the DTS encoding all the way through, regardless of the container format (flac or WAV) so that the signal is only decoded ultimately by the receiver.

 

[mito]

If I set the receiver to IN-AUTO or IN-PCM, I hear white noise.
I thought the receiver would automatically recognize the DTS signals and play accordingly.

In order to play DTS-encoded sources, your sound card needs to support bit-perfect digital output (i.e. no resampling to 48 kHz on the way). Otherwise, you are out of luck.

Using wave files containing DTS-encoded material is actually a good way of testing whether your sound card is resampling internally.

That's what I'm doing. The wav files that contain DTS aren't being played properly. Only white noise. I believe there is no resampling being done, because I'm able to watch DVD movies using DTS and everything works. This means that the datastream is passing the soundcard unscathed.

 

[Bolloxoid]

I believe there is no resampling being done, because I'm able to watch DVD movies using DTS and everything works. This means that the datastream is passing the soundcard unscathed.

Your DVD player software is able to enable an SPDIF bypass mode and the software you use to play your DTS audio files is not.

 

[kyleb]

So wouldn't a PC would have to rencode them to DTS for the recever to recognise them as such, where soundstorm doesn't support realtime DTS encoding? Am I missing something?

The point is to retain the DTS encoding all the way through, regardless of the container format (flac or WAV) so that the signal is only decoded ultimately by the receiver.

Understood on the point, I just don't follow on how one is supposed to get a DTS signal passed though to the recever when the files have to be decompressed by the media player.

 

[mito]

So wouldn't a PC would have to rencode them to DTS for the recever to recognise them as such, where soundstorm doesn't support realtime DTS encoding? Am I missing something?

The point is to retain the DTS encoding all the way through, regardless of the container format (flac or WAV) so that the signal is only decoded ultimately by the receiver.

Understood on the point, I just don't follow on how one is supposed to get a DTS signal passed though to the recever when the files have to be decompressed by the media player.

WAV files have no compression. They're pure.

 

[mito]

I believe there is no resampling being done, because I'm able to watch DVD movies using DTS and everything works. This means that the datastream is passing the soundcard unscathed.

Your DVD player software is able to enable an SPDIF bypass mode and the software you use to play your DTS audio files is not.

Well, there are output options that allow selecting SPDIF.

 

[kyleb]

WAV files have no compression. They're pure.

Ah yeah, I knew that but just didnt think about it. FLAC is compressed though as the name implies, eh?

 

[mito]

WAV files have no compression. They're pure.

Ah yeah, I knew that but just didnt think about it. FLAC is compressed though as the name implies, eh?

I'm not sure about that. The files are big though (almost 70mb), indicating there isn't compression.

This thing is driving me nuts.

 

[kyleb]

Understood, I just get the impression that such files were made to be decoded locally on a PC and heard though the anolog outs of said PC, not output digitaly to a recever.