ATI 4870 HDMI CyberLink 8, TotalMedia Theatre, WinDVD 9

[nakedninja42]

Hi all, Long time Reader first time writer.

First off, PC Specs:
AMD 9750 Quad
ATI 4870 decodes Dolby TrueHD DTS-HD MA to 5.1 or 7.1 according to ATI
4gbs Ram
2.7 TB Harddrives
LG Blu Ray/ HDDVD Rom
Gigabyte 780 mobo
Windows Vista x32 or Windows 7

Home Theatre:
Samsung LN40A630
Samsung HT-AS720S AV HTiB Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA passthrough


Ok now with that out of the way. I am running HDMI via the 4870 directly to my receiver and it picks up the 5.1 as multichannel when selecting Speaker Setup from RealTek on the PC. I can select the speaker channel and get a noise from each speaker on my system. So I assume that this is communicating the same as if I were to have my analog connections.

I have played with PowerDVD and TotalMedia non stop for weeks now and this is what I have to ask.

DTS-HD MA
Dolby TrueHD

PowerDVD has no problem convincing me that it decodes TrueHD no problem with my receiver. But if I use DTS-HD the info says its decoding the source by in configuration it shows only DTS 48 khz 5.1 6000mb. Its not as convincing that it decodes the source properly. PowerDVD is configured with audio selected as HDMI.

TotalMedia sounds a lot louder when using the DTS-HD MA source than PowerDVD but I'm not sure if its decoding the source properly from many many posts I have read. This is setup with audio selected as 5.1 (no selection for HDMI) and the rest of the functions disabled. The problem I have with TotalMedia is that Menu and other previews come up fuzzy but do not come up fuzzy in PowerDVD. I feel like I’m losing video quality on the main source even though its not fuzzy like the menu. When I refer to it as fuzzy, everything is pixel and blocks. TotalMedia does not work in Windows 7 either.

Now I have not been able to test WinDVD 9 Plus because of the lack of Blu Ray support in the trial. If it has same issues as the other two im not wasting my time purchasing it.

What I am ultimately trying to ask after saying all this is... WHAT CAN I TRUST when it comes to decoding audio properly for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.

[glogrono]

The specs for this card say this:

Subject to digital rights management limitations; maximum supported audio stream bandwidth is 6.144 Mbps

That's weird cause I thought HD audio required more bandwidth than that. Can anyone confirm this?

[Wolfy]

What soundcard are you using and is it hooked into the videocard?

[nakedninja42]

I had the onboard realtek 0889A i believe, but i disabled that and have been using the HDMI from ATI 4870. Since the posting I have disabled the onboard sound, and updated the drivers from the ATI site to 9.2. So far this has cured a lot of my issues. Ive decided that Totalmedia needs to release a few more updates, its only purpose now is for my HDDVD's and TrueHD. PowerDVD seems to work fine with Blu ray.

As for the max audio bandwidth, I was wondering if that was due to limitation of the cable or the card. I recently went overkill and picked up the Monster Cable 1200 HDMI Blu Ray supporting 10.87.

I have gotten PowerDVD 8 to run Patriot at Uncompressed LPCM 5.1 at 4800 and watched Batman Dark Knight running TrueHD 800 - 2200 during action. I think DTS-HD MA is the only thing that touches 6000. According to Config on PowerDVD it says that its running that on 5.1 at 6000. but from reading post i was wondering if i am getting that from powerDVD or is it downsampling to DTS-core

[Ryu77]

Originally Posted by Wolfy

What soundcard are you using and is it hooked into the videocard?

See here...

Originally Posted by nakedninja42

ATI 4870 decodes Dolby TrueHD DTS-HD MA to 5.1 or 7.1 according to ATI

Wolfy, as nakedninja42 mentioned, the ATI Video Cards have onboard audio support. They decode the HD audio formats and send them as multi channel LPCM.

Originally Posted by glogrono

That's weird cause I thought HD audio required more bandwidth than that. Can anyone confirm this?

Very rarely... This of course depends on sample rate and bit depth but HD audio usually sits around the 2 - 4 Mbit/s mark.

Originally Posted by nakedninja42

I had the onboard realtek 0889A i believe, but i disabled that and have been using the HDMI from ATI 4870. Since the posting I have disabled the onboard sound, and updated the drivers from the ATI site to 9.2. So far this has cured a lot of my issues. Ive decided that Totalmedia needs to release a few more updates, its only purpose now is for my HDDVD's and TrueHD. PowerDVD seems to work fine with Blu ray.

I have no problems with Blu-ray on TotalMedia Theatre. From what I believe, it is the only media player that decodes HD audio correctly (beyond 48 kHz).

Originally Posted by nakedninja42

As for the max audio bandwidth, I was wondering if that was due to limitation of the cable or the card. I recently went overkill and picked up the Monster Cable 1200 HDMI Blu Ray supporting 10.87.

Not entirely necessary, but you have a good cable now so at least that is no longer a concern. Cables can't really be limited in a true sense. They can be tested and certified though. It is usually the interface that determines the bandwidth. That being said, a low quality cable simply wont work at all if too much data is being pushed through it. Remember the HDMI cables are listing Gbit/s, and HD audio is coded in Mbit/s... So that cable you just bought is capable of 11,130.88 Mbit/s.

Originally Posted by nakedninja42

I have gotten PowerDVD 8 to run Patriot at Uncompressed LPCM 5.1 at 4800 and watched Batman Dark Knight running TrueHD 800 - 2200 during action. I think DTS-HD MA is the only thing that touches 6000. According to Config on PowerDVD it says that its running that on 5.1 at 6000. but from reading post i was wondering if i am getting that from powerDVD or is it downsampling to DTS-core

If that is what is being displayed, then that is what is being decoded. If it were only the core being decoded a bitrate of 1.5 Mbit/s would be displayed.

[nakedninja42]

Originally Posted by Ryu77

I have no problems with Blu-ray on TotalMedia Theatre. From what I believe, it is the only media player that decodes HD audio correctly (beyond 48 kHz).

Thanks for replying Ryu77. The only problem I have with TotalMedia Theatre is that my menu's and anything playing prior to the menu is very fuzzy. Until recent I felt that the movie had some loss on the quality, but the ATI 9.2 release fixed that for me.

I am wondering if it is really an issue with the release build I have of the TotalMedia.

[Ryu77]

Originally Posted by nakedninja42

Thanks for replying Ryu77. The only problem I have with TotalMedia Theatre is that my menu's and anything playing prior to the menu is very fuzzy. Until recent I felt that the movie had some loss on the quality, but the ATI 9.2 release fixed that for me.

I am wondering if it is really an issue with the release build I have of the TotalMedia.

Did you enable hardware acceleration?

[nakedninja42]

Originally Posted by Ryu77

Did you enable hardware acceleration?

I went to check but the option is greyed out and below says "Your current display driver does not allow changes to be made to hadrware acceleration settings."

Tried to google this but no solution popped up.

I am planning out going through my other Blu Rays and HDDVD's later to see if this is happens to the other movies besides The Patriot. I wish I can find a tool to take a screenshot to show what I am talking about, Vista's snippit, fraps and the print screen button are giving me a black screen (figured this is because of Privacy Protection)

[nakedninja42]

It seems that the only movie that is giving me any trouble with menu or the previews is the Patriot. Every other movie I stuck in had no problems.