-=Favor Request=- RE: WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough

S

Stereodude

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I'm in the process of getting a new Pioneer HT receiver that can decode WMA Pro 5.1 / 7.1 audio, so I was checking on my Chaintech AV710 sound card (in my HTPC) yesterday and it doesn't support WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough. I have a few of the IMAX WMV-HD DVDs that use this audio format, so I would like to get this working.

Since I know you guys all have a wide variety of sound cards in your PCs can you check to see if WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough is supported on them?

To check open WMP10 and go to Tools, then Options. Then pick the Devices tab. Select Speakers, then click Properties. You will see this:

wma_pro.gif


If your card supports it, it's like the above picture. If not, it will be greyed out.

Basically, I'm trying to find the cheapest sound card that has bit perfect output and supports this WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough for my HTPC. So far it looks like the M-Audio Revolution 5.1 is my cheapest option (assuming it supports this like it's 7.1 channel big brother).

Thanks!
 
The HDA X-Mystique 7.1 does not support it, least not under XP x64. My ancient CMI8738 doesn't either, not that that is a surprise.
 
I ended up putting M-Audio Revolution 7.1 into my HTPC (which supports WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough) and I put my Chaintech AV710 in my desktop PC. With my new Pioneer Elite VSX-84TXSi I get WMA Pro 5.1 decoding from my WMV-HD DVDs. I have most of the IMAX discs and Terminator 2.
 
Of course there's no gain without pain. I had been using nVidia's nStant media player on my HTPC, which for some odd reason doesn't like the Revolution 7.1 much. It will only output 2 channel PCM audio rather than doing a SPDIF passthrough like it's supposed to for DD and DTS content (It's set for SPDIF output, not "Stereo"). So, I now either have to find another soundcard that does WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough, bit perfect 2 channel SPDIF out, and cooperates with nStant media, or I try to get another media player working with nVidia's fancy deinterlacing and video processing (which has proven impossible in the past)...

ARGH!!!
 
Stereodude said:
Of course there's no gain without pain. I had been using nVidia's nStant media player on my HTPC, which for some odd reason doesn't like the Revolution 7.1 much. It will only output 2 channel PCM audio rather than doing a SPDIF passthrough like it's supposed to for DD and DTS content (It's set for SPDIF output, not "Stereo"). So, I now either have to find another soundcard that does WMA Pro SPDIF Passthrough, bit perfect 2 channel SPDIF out, and cooperates with nStant media, or I try to get another media player working with nVidia's fancy deinterlacing and video processing (which has proven impossible in the past)...

ARGH!!!
Click to expand...

PITA, all the formats of Hi-Def, audio & video; incompatibilities, upconversion/downconversion, weird aspect ratios, proper I/O connectors, etc. Sometimes you just want to turn on the TV, the old crappy kind, listen to mono, eat hot dogs & pizza with beer/wine, and brain veg :) .

4k HD in 5-10yrs will be awesome though (maybe sooner with this 65mm format camera), I'm not so enthralled with 2k or less, especially with all the artifacts, image degradation from compression, woefully inaccurate/exaggerated colors, really weak latitude/dynamic range compared to film media, and system incompatibilities. Uncompressed 2k, on a meticulously tweaked setup from a meticulously shot/processed source is great however. Unfortunately that's not the norm.

Maybe you'll have more luck with research on this megasite (kind of slow though and ponderous to navigate, which you'd expect for it's size).

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/showthread.php?t=233999
 
you might be able to get around some of your sound issues by getting the open source AC3 filter. It fits in as a direct show filter and is far more configurable than most programs that deal with AC3 by themselves. It also allows for various up mixing/down mixing options which may make it helpful in this situation.
 
I find that media player classic (using ffdshow and ac3filter) are able to do what I need, but I havent screwed around with the vendor-specific stuff or HD.
 
Sol said:
you might be able to get around some of your sound issues by getting the open source AC3 filter. It fits in as a direct show filter and is far more configurable than most programs that deal with AC3 by themselves. It also allows for various up mixing/down mixing options which may make it helpful in this situation.
Click to expand...
I tried using 1.10b, but nStant Media seems to bypass it.

I think I got MPC working for video and audio, but I'm not 100% sure it's using all the Purevideo HD video processing. I'll have to mess with it later to make sure.

WMP 10 doesn't want to play back HD stuff (1080i TS files) completely smoothly. There seems to be a little stutter every second or so, but it's definitely using all the Purevideo HD processing.
 
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