stevebt

iTrader: (8)

anyone know of a mother board that deffinately has a dolby digital optical otput on as i want to connect it to my AV amp all the ones i have seen have connection for 5.1 if your plugging in pc speakers but i need an optical output

Mr.Cookie

Steve alot of the asus boards do, but it is an add on so takes up a pci bay but does'nt use the pci connector, see here what about a shuttle they have digital out and in.

Si

greasemonkey

Steve, are you talking about boards that output DD all the time, or only when you're playing a DVD? There are plenty of boards that have optical output, but, unless you are playing a DVD, or other Dolby Digital source, most of these boards only output stereo sound through their digital outputs.

If you want DD 5.1 output all the time , the only boards capable of supporting this are nVidia chipset boards featuring the Soundstorm Audio Processing Unit and Dolby Interactice Content Encoder (trademark overload there!).

If this is what you're after, look at the Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Abit NF7 series, MSI K7N2 Delta or similar. Edited to say that the Abit boards have a digital output on the board itself, but with the MSI or the Asus you have to buy an add-on bracket to get optical out.

However, this "real time" DD encoding reduces the inherent sound quality because of the data compression involved, and of course the nForce chipset is only available for the AMD processors at the moment. If you want to go Intel, or if your AV receiver has a set of 5.1 channel analog inputs, the sound quality will be better if you connect these to a set of 5.1 channel analog outputs on the soundcard.

In this case, a premium soundcard with multichannel analog outputs, like the SoundBlaster Audigy 2, would give the best results.

[Edited by greasemonkey - 7/26/2003 6:37:58 PM]

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Yup, my Abit NF7 board has it, cheap too

UHF

You need a board with a 5.1 "Encoder" on it, I have the same problem.

I have a Sony surround system in my room which accepts coax or optical digital input. You need like the guys say a Nforce2 upwards based board OR a motherboard/sound card with the CMI 8738 or 9738 chipset on.

See http://www.cmedia.com.tw

They got together with Dolby and now do a USB based device, problem is that they make the chipsets but not the product and I havent managed to find anyone selling the add on boards.

I have an Asus P4C800 with a 2.8Ghz P4 with HT so I REALLY dont want to change the motherboard etc just for this, waiting for an addin!

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

for an addon card at komplet with 2 optical outputs and its only £27, but id prefer to just have the one on the board so i dont get any issues with the 2 cards

greasemonkey

Abit NF7-S it is then. As UHF says, the C-Media 9739 can do it, but the encoder is almost entirely software based, uses a load of CPU cycles, and is in any case virtually impossible to find on a production motherboard.

DD encoding really is a horrible way to get multichannel sound from one place to the next, given the quality losses involved. If you can do it with your AV amp, 5.1 analog is the best way.