PowerDVD SPDIF Problem

[Russtavo]

I hope someone can save my sanity and help me with this problem! I have my new HTPC connected to my amp with Coax S/PDIF. Applications such as Windows Media Player are working great, sending the correct 48kHz 2ch 16bit PCM to S/PDIF out as my amp displays "Dolby Digital" or "DTS" depending on the source. One major problem: PowerDVD outputs NO sound whatsoever when I change the audio settings to "S/PDIF". If I set it to anything else (e.g. "2 Speaker", "6 speaker") I just get stereo sound. My suspicion is a compatibility issue between PowerDVD and my X-Fi Sound Blaster drivers, but who knows? Here's my system spec:

PC: Dell Vostro 200 Slim
OS: Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1
Graphics: ASUS Radeon HD 3450 (Catalyst 8.2)
Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio (latest drivers)
Display: Sony Bravia KDL-32D3000
Amp: Denon AVR-3802
PowerDVD Ultra: 7.3.3730.0
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray/HDDVD Combo Drive

I have disabled the onboard Relatek audio, and disabled the High-Def Audio on the graphics card.

I've done screengrabs of all relevant settings/info, they are here:

http://demon.xssl.net/~admin2/spdif/index.htm

I've e-mailed Cyberlink support but they are s-l-o-w, and not helpful. I want to play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, so I really need PowerDVD to work. I would really appreciated some help on this, thanks all!

[Russtavo]

Are you a Sound Blaster X-Fi owner running Vista? I so I need your help! Please post :thanks:

[slaman]

Having the same problem... except I am using an onboard Realtek chip...

[Siouxie]

I have recently experienced the same issues.
I think you're right to say it has to do with your X-Fi drivers.
I just updated the drivers for my Auzuntech Prelude (which is X-Fi) and started experiencing the SPDIF problems with PowerDVD, which was playing fine before. The difference with the new driver is that it can do DDLive - I think the use of DDLive is causing the problem at some level (when I use the motherboard output -with HDAudio codec, the SPDIF plays fine in PDVD.

If you have DDLive, a workaround would be to set it on, set PowerDVD to 6 speakers (or whatever you have) and have DDLive reencode everything - this works, but introduces a very slight audio delay, which I find somewhat annoying, but it is slight...

[Pelican9]

I hope someone can save my sanity and help me with this problem! I have my new HTPC connected to my amp with Coax S/PDIF. Applications such as Windows Media Player are working great, sending the correct 48kHz 2ch 16bit PCM to S/PDIF out as my amp displays "Dolby Digital" or "DTS" depending on the source. One major problem: PowerDVD outputs NO sound whatsoever when I change the audio settings to "S/PDIF". If I set it to anything else (e.g. "2 Speaker", "6 speaker") I just get stereo sound. My suspicion is a compatibility issue between PowerDVD and my X-Fi Sound Blaster drivers, but who knows? Here's my system spec:

PC: Dell Vostro 200 Slim
OS: Vista Ultimate 32-bit SP1
Graphics: ASUS Radeon HD 3450 (Catalyst 8.2)
Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio (latest drivers)
Display: Sony Bravia KDL-32D3000
Amp: Denon AVR-3802
PowerDVD Ultra: 7.3.3730.0
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray/HDDVD Combo Drive

I have disabled the onboard Relatek audio, and disabled the High-Def Audio on the graphics card.

I've done screengrabs of all relevant settings/info, they are here:

http://demon.xssl.net/~admin2/spdif/index.htm

I've e-mailed Cyberlink support but they are s-l-o-w, and not helpful. I want to play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, so I really need PowerDVD to work. I would really appreciated some help on this, thanks all!

PowerDVD turn off the spdif output during playback if I use under Vista. The same PowerDVD works welll under XP SP2.

[Russtavo]

The problem I think is sound card drivers and how they operate with Vista Audio APIs. Where PowerDVD and VLC fail in Vista, ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre succeeds with SPDIF output (for me at least).

[slaman]

I found out a few things - people can confirm...

There is no possible way to output DD+ or DTS-HD from a software player... there are two options however, and I'd like opinions on which is better.

SPDIF: Apparently, either a DD5.1/DTS track is included with the source, and this is what is passed through SPDIF, or, the DD+/DTS-HD track is a lossless downsampled to DD5.1/DTS. In either case, if you can get the player to output via SPDIF, this is what is occuring.

My problem is that I can't get PowerDVD to output to SPDIF, and when I tried downloading the TotalMedia Theatre demo from ArcSoft, it failed during install (couldn't find a file?). Which was frustrating...

Analogue: This can be done through either a 5.1 or 7.1 analogue setup, and apparently outputs the DD+/DTS-HD in a lossy format. Is this lossy non-downsampled output better than the lossless downsampled output?

What if I only have a 5.1 setup (3 analogue cables), and the DD+/DTS-HD is actually 7.1?

Would love confirmation to make sure I've understood the issues.

[slaman]

Good post here that explains the options:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13233928&postcount=6095

Apparently, I was a bit off.

[asalpopat]

I have the foll config
core2duo 1.86
2 gb
asus 945 mboard
realtek hd chip onboard with spidf

i had problems to output dolby digital stream through powerdvd 7.3 but when i started to use the powerdvd oem bd version 7.3 bundled with my sony blu-ray rom i am able to configure powerdvd to output to spidf instead of 4 or 6 speaker and my yamaha reciever now shows dolby digital and gives me excellent audio.