why no HDMI on sound cards?

[qwo]

i want a sound card with HDMI connector so i can take advantage of blue ray's high quality audio(im connecting my pc to my 7.1), so far i could not find any sound card that has HDMI connector, why is that?

 

[alexp999]

Cus HDMI, is sound AND picture. The sound card has no way of creating the picture.
You either need a sound card that has internal SPDIF output that can connect to a compatible graphics card. Or a graphics card that has built in sound

 

[qwo]

does S/PDIF have enough bandwidth to carry all the data for HDMI?

 

[alexp999]

does S/PDIF have enough bandwidth to carry all the data for HDMI?

It will only be carrying the sound. The easiest option is to use HDMI for just the picture, then have a separate cable for sound, either coxial SPDIF or optical. What system do you have atm?

 

[qwo]

i have a x-fi and nvidia 9600GT, but im not sure how to connect S/PDIF to my video card, and i have a playstation 3 too, is it possible to connect my ps3 to my pc via HDMI and then connect my pc to my tv and monitor?

 

[alexp999]

Which type of each you got? Manufacturer/Model? It could well be you just need a little cable to connect your sound card to your graphics card.

 

[qwo]

and HDMI Maximum audio bandwidth is 36.86 Mbit/s
i heard S/PDIF does not have that bandwidth, im not sure though

ps: do u mean the hardware in my pc?
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=17927&listby=
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2911

 

[Dark_Webster]

You will be connecting your X-Fi to your 9600GT. Then you plug a HDMI cable into the 9600GT and voilá. Sound and Video through the same cable.

Of course S/PDIF has less bandwith. It carries digital sound, but just that.

 

[alexp999]

Well your graphics card has the input, but your sound card doesnt have the ouput .

I'll have a think and see what other people come up with and get back to you.

EDIT:
So can the 9600GT pick up the sound through windows then? I thought it had to be physcially connected?

 

[Dark_Webster]

EDIT:
So can the 9600GT pick up the sound through windows then? I thought it had to be physcially connected?

I think that the 9600GT is only a passthrough for sound. I haven't tested this yet.

 

[Darren]

i want a sound card with HDMI connector so i can take advantage of blue ray's high quality audio(im connecting my pc to my 7.1), so far i could not find any sound card that has HDMI connector, why is that?

There are a couple of soundcards that have built in HDMI outputs:

ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe 7.1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132008


and

Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD (recommended)
http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_hometheater_hd.php

does S/PDIF have enough bandwidth to carry all the data for HDMI?

S/PDIF does not have the bandwidth needed to handle the new Blu-Ray formats such as Dolby True HD and DTS Masters, however SPDIF can carry Dolby Digital Plus (DD+).


I'm guessing that you have an AV receiver which is capable of decoding these new formats too?

 

[qwo]

There are a couple of soundcards that have built in HDMI outputs:

ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe 7.1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132008


and

Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD (recommened)
http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_hometheater_hd.php



S/PDIF does not have the bandwidth needed to handle the new Blu-Ray formats such as Dolby True HD and DTS Masters, however SPDIF can carry Dolby Digital Plus (DD+).


I'm guessing that you have an AV receiver which is capable of decoding these new formats too?

yes, i have those, but if there is HDMI on sound card, how do you get the video?
and what about dolby true HD, how should i set up my cables?
thanks to Darren and alexp999 for the help

 

[Darren]

yes, i have those, but if there is HDMI on sound card, how do you get the video?
and what about dolby true HD, how should i set up my cables?
thanks to Darren and alexp999 for the help

Both the ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe and Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD can handle both video and audio simultaneously via HDMI, presumably through a signal cable.

You said that you've got a PS3 that you're using to play the Blu-Ray material, you can use a HDMI cable from the PS3 straight to the AV receiver to decode the DD True-HD and DTS Masters formats when playing back movies. Then buy a soundcard capable of encoding Dolby Digital and DTS bit streams on the fly from two channel sources such as MP3s in which your AV receiver can decode.

This way you get:

PC (DD and DTS encoding) using SPDIF to AV receiver for MP3s and PC games
PS3 (DD True HD/DD+/DTS Masters) using HDMI to receiver for Blu-Ray movies

HT OMEGA STRIKER 7.1 (cheapest soundcard that I could find that is capable of encoding two channel sources into DD/DTS via SPDIF)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001

 

[imperialreign]

If an audio card has an HDMI_IN connection and a HDMI output, all it's doing is passing the video stream through to the cable

If a video card has a SPDIF_IN and a HDMI output, all it's doing is passing the audio stream through to the cable.

As to the X-Fis . . . some have an SPDIF header on the card, some don't. Some have a HDMI_OUT header on the card, some don't. To generalize it - the lower end X-Fi cards do not have these connectors, the cards were not designed for this type of usage.

If the sound card does not have a HDMI connector on the PCI plate, it cannot pass-through video. If the card has a HDMI_OUT header on the PCB, it can pass audio to a video card for HDMI output. In some cases, you might need an adapter cable, as some audio cards have 3 or 4-pin HDMI or SPDIF headers, and most video cards have either a 2-pin or 3-pin header.




The problem with HDMI pass-through and all this jazz, it's not a "standardized" format. There's no standard for how many pins the audio card should have, or how many pins the video card should have. Even if you can hook them together, there's no guarantee that they'll work flawlessly.

The only cards that do work together without any problems are ASUS video cards with an HDMI output and SPDIF_IN connector, and their Xonar sound cards with an SPDIF_OUT connection. ASUS has specifically designed their sound cards and video cards to work together in this regard.



My personal recommendation, though - if you're looking for the best sound quality possible, scrap the HDMI and go with a standalone setup, running an optical connection to a dedicated external reciever. The more times you have to pass audio from one component to the next within a rig, you're running the risk of introducing ambient noise and interference, interference from PCB components, losing small amounts of data as it's being converted from one format to another, etc.

 

[nedrix]

Would this work

If I connect a dvi/hdmi cable from graphics card directly to tv and a second hdmi cable from hd sound card to my amp, I think this would work perfectly. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[DaMulta]

All ATi cards have sound card built into their cards

Nvidia cards you have to tie in the sound(If you can)into the card for HDMI sound.

 

[HolyCow02]

If I was you, just connect the playstation to the tv with the HDMI cable, connect the tv to the the pc with a dvi/vga cable, and for sound, use an optical cable from the audio card to the av receiver.

I don't see the point of going from the audio card to the video card then out the the receiver. Just to direct.

 

[Easy Rhino]

my mobo has integrated audio/video with hdmi out. it works fine and cost me 50 bucks.

 

[nedrix]

Question

Is it full True HD sound?

 

[Darren]

Your AV receiver needs to support Dolby True-HD 7.1

The PS3 will only play back Dolby Digital 5.1 in games, however the PS3 will also playback Blu-Ray movies in Dolby True-HD 7.1 or DTS-Masters 7.1 providing the AV receiver has support for the format.

nedrix,

Easy Rhino's soundcard would provide only pass-through, meaning that he would have to have an authentic Blu-Ray DVD in order to have the bit streams passed to his AV receiver to decode. He would most likely get PCM stereo when playing back mp3s using the soundcard but he can use Prologic to create surround on the receiver

Edit:

Be back in a few hours

Edit 2:

darren, you dont need a receiver that supports true-hd or dts-ma so long as you have the ps3 set to pcm and you are using hdmi between them. the ps3 does all of the decoding already so the receiver just sends the signal to the proper audio channel.

I didn't know that.

So having the PS3 is the exception, but normally you'd need a a capable AV receiver.

 

[Easy Rhino]

darren, you dont need a receiver that supports true-hd or dts-ma so long as you have the ps3 set to pcm and you are using hdmi between them. the ps3 does all of the decoding already so the receiver just sends the signal to the proper audio channel.