Headphone setup help with PowerDVD

VTV

Newbie Joined: Sep 17, 2013 02:00 Messages: 2 Offline

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Sep 17, 2013 02:57

Hi

I have a lot of BD collection on a NAS as well as on the PC. I am trying to turn the PC into a hi-fi audio source from BD (mostly concerts, Musicals etc.). The audio include TrueHD/DTS MA often in resolutions of 24/192 7.1 channels.

The plan was to take audio stream (24/192 7.1) to an external 24/192 DAC and then to a headphone amp. Now problem is that only HDMI or Firewire can actually carry such bandwidth. S/PDIF can maximum manage 5.1 at much lower bit rate. It does not help that DAC with HDMI or Firewire are rare or very costly.

Eitherway since DAC cannot downmix or decode TrueHD/DTS MA, I am assuming this has to be done at the PC using PowerDVD.

So my question is this.

Will PowerDVD decode a 24/192 7.1 True HD/DTS MA audio stream, downmix it stereo or a headphone optimized two channel audio and send it bypassing the PC sound card DAC to the external DAC via USB or S/PDIF?

This will solve a lot of problems for me.

Thanks in advance.

VTV

Newbie Joined: Sep 17, 2013 02:00 Messages: 2 Offline

Sep 17, 2013 04:01

Basically I would like to know the sequence of audio processing done by PowerDVD if want to listen in stereo or a headphone optimized two channel audio..

Is audio flow like this:

TrueHD/DTS MA sound --> DTS/Dolby decode --> Downmix --> Sound processing (optional) --> DAC (sound card or external) --> Headphone

Is PowerDVD able to bypass the internal DAC of the PC/Sound card or bypassing the DAC is the function of windows driver provided by the external DAC?

moi

Newbie Joined: Apr 26, 2012 12:23 Messages: 4 Offline

Sep 28, 2013 08:37

I use PDVD13 with an external USB DAC (Fiio e17) and my headphone HD598, I mostly play movies and TV series in HD wich are encoded in DTS or Dolby 5.1 and it works fine.