DivX with 5.1 audio on SB Audigy

[ChAoS Overlord]

I'm thinking of buying the top of the range speakerset of cambridge, the megaworks 510D. These are digital BUT the decoding of the AC3 has to be done by my soundblaster Audigy. Is there a hack of some sort, or some special prerequisite to make my Audigy decode the 5.1 sound correctly? Has anybody done this yet? I haven't found anything in the faq here.

[ChAoS Overlord]

I have been experimenting, I installed the latest windvd (4.0) and than the mpgaudio, with my dvd's I "get" 5.1 playback when I set my sb audigy to 6 speaker setup (I only have 2.1 speakers at the moment) but in bsplayer, I get only 2 channel audio.

How can I enable it? I succeeded in doing this with windvd 3.1 on my old computer with 4.1 sound and an sblive on windows 98 SE, but now I have windows XP and windvd4.

[tiki4]

Hi ChAoS Overlord (complicated nick, puh...),

I've got Soundblaster Audigy and attached Creative Inspiron 5.1 speakers. I also have Windows XP Pro and WinDVD 4 Plus (multi-channel). I found some problems with the original drivers from Creative. The latest official driver is from 01/21/2002. Creative announced newer drivers for August (so I hope the next days). Anyway there have been new driver releases by Compaq and Gateway. Please check ALive! (http://alive.singnet.com.sg).

With the newer Compaq drivers I've been able to get analog 5.1 sound (decoding with iviaudio.ax) and also SP/DIF (decoding AC3 done by Audigy). This works inside WinDVD but also with AVI files in Windows Media Player (you still have to register mpgaudio.ax of course). I don't know about Bsplayer, but maybe it is an driver issue as the original Creative drivers are quite crappy.

Regards,

tiki4

[ChAoS Overlord]

Originally posted by tiki4
also SP/DIF (decoding AC3 done by Audigy

Aha! is there I way, I can hack it to make the sp/dif output work in mediaplayer/bsplayer? Because the speakers I want to buy are completely digital. Anyway, if the new drivers come out this month it's still in time, cause I will only buy my speakerset next month.

[tiki4]

Sorry,

I don't have digital speakers. The Inspirion 5700 is the big brother of my 5300 speaker set and features an external AC3 / DTS decoder. I cannot test that. Nevertheless, I got SP/DIF setting in Intervideo filter working (in WinDVD and Media Player) with the newer drivers. I guess Creative will release theirs end of this months as they are the same as the new Live! drivers from 17th of July.

Maybe everything you have to do is tick SP/DIF in the filter settings and deselect 'decode AC3' in the Surround Mixer. Give it a try, but from my own experience and from what I read in the forums Creative cards are beasts and 5.1 digital output (as well as analog) is just a serious headache...

tiki4

[ChAoS Overlord]

Originally posted by tiki4
deselect 'decode AC3' in the Surround Mixer.

I can't seem to find it? Where is this option located? Do you have a screenshot?

[tiki4]

No, I don't have a screen shot at the moment, but just open Surround Mixer from the Creative tools program group, then click to the advanced view (or something like that, I'm German), the choose the speaker settings (a shorter way is via the AudioHQ -> speakers). Here you select 'settings' and then you have the options for 'decoding AC3' and 'redirect bass to subwoofer'.

Cheers,

tiki4

[ChAoS Overlord]

I have found the option, Thank you. Now I just hope I get good sound by the time I have my 5.1 speakerset. (which is digital but without decoder)