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.