Quote Hello guys.

Some newer blurays offer this audio format. Most other formats are encoded in 48Khz 16bit and with lossy compression.

DTS-HD MA is apparently encoded in 48KHz 24bit and with lossless compression.

I spent some time and money to improve audio output for movies and one of the trick is to use same output format from audiocard, as is in the stream.

Unfortunately PDVD cannot switch to 24bit LPCM output format or at least it does not indicate to..

I tried some thirdparty solutions and I managed to get audio output in proper format. On cheap audio it wont make any difference.

On more expensive auido you might notice some details in 24bit output.

Any tips on this?

To output 24 bit audio, your audio connection interface must support the bandwidth, and your audio receiver/speakers must support the 24 bit audio input as well.

Do you apply S/PDIF interface to connect your PC with speakers?
S/PDIF does not support DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD audio as the data bandwidth is not sufficient.

Use HDMI 1.4 or above connection, and ensure your GPU card's HDMI port supports the 24-bit audio format as well. Otherwise, the 24 bit audio output is still not available.

Quote


To output 24 bit audio, your audio connection interface must support the bandwidth, and your audio receiver/speakers must support the 24 bit audio input as well.

Do you apply S/PDIF interface to connect your PC with speakers?
S/PDIF does not support DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD audio as the data bandwidth is not sufficient.

Use HDMI 1.4 or above connection, and ensure your GPU card's HDMI port supports the 24-bit audio format as well. Otherwise, the 24 bit audio output is still not available.

Configuration test with SPDIF:
One of the previous tests with SPDIF and DTS-HD MA audio shows that DTS-HD MA is automatically switched to AC3 at 640kbps (5.1 channels). Which means that PDVD recognized the incompatibility and switched to playable (yet compressed) sound.

a) The output soundcard (ALC 1220, on mainboard AsRock x399M Taichi) should support DTS Connect.
I started to read into the technology, it should support 24bit/96KHz, with stereo downmix (which would be more than enough) and automatic conversion from multichannel to stereo.

However the receiving amplifier (NAD d3020 v2) does not appear to support any DTS or Dolby standards, and after reading that standard SPDIF probably cannot use more than 20bit i decided to not use SPDIF for movie audio.

In such situation:
- Either Source audio switched from DTS-HD MA to AC3
- Output is uncompressed but 48KHz 16bit
- On 3rd party applications Output might be indicated as 48KHz 24bit, but is in fact either compressed on SPDIF link, or reduced to 20 or 16 bits without notification


b) HDMI
Unfortunately the receiver is a monitor LG 27GN950 and does not support encoded formats, and HDCP is not present.

Frankly i wanted it for image (Calibrated RGB, BT709 or HDR 600), not sound. Supported audio is up to 48KHz 24bit and 2 channels. PDVD decodes audio to PCM, unfortunately its again 48KHz/16bits 2 channels.

Even when the output here isnt great, 24bit output was expected.
(I might try HDMI 2,0b cable just for the science)



c) Analog output from Soundcard
After few tests i decided to use internal sound card (ALC 1220) which does support output to 7.1 channels, up to 32bits and 384KHz.

To keep things efficient, output is set just to Stereo, 24bits and 48KHz, while AUX output is connected to the amplifier as an analog signal. This is optimal for both 16bit and 24bit sound formats.

However PowerDVD even in this situation still converts audio to 48KHz/16bit LPCM.



3rd party software does indicate 48KHz 24bit output, but I will check for as many details as possible.