DTS audio discs on HTPC? (1 Viewer)

[John Gates]

Last evening, while working on my HT, I tried to play a DTS audio CD in my HTPC (my audio CD player won't do DTS, and my DVD player has been moved to another part of the house since the HTPC arrived).

I expected this to work, but the DVD software (PowerDVD) didn't recognize it since it's not a DVD, and Windows Media Player won't play it because it's DTS.

Any thoughts on how I can use the HTPC to play these DTS Audio Discs? I'd hate to keep a DVD player around JUST to play the two that I own...

Thanks!

John G

 

[Marty Christion]

Maybe WinDVD 4? Do you have your HTPC digitally hooked up to a reciever, or is it all analog out?

 

[John Gates]

I'm using a M-Audio 24/96 audio card connected to Onkyo 787 via digital coax cable. I get 6.1 surround w/DVDs.

When I try to play using PowerDVD, I get a message that says there is "no DVD present." Of course, the DTS audio CDs aren't DVDs, so that makes some sense. Will version 4 of Win DVD play DTS audio CDs?

Thanks for the reply...

John G

 

[Jeff Kleist]

DTS Audio CDs have the digital signal encoded in analog format (ever pick up the phone when a modem is going? There you go). Your software does not have the capability to convert that waveform into a bitstream

 

[Ken Chan]

my audio CD player won't do DTS

It shouldn't know or care, as long as it has a digital out (optical or coax). DTS on CD is the exact same bitrate as CD PCM -- instead of a digitized analog waveform, it's compressed data. The bits are blindly sent through the digital out, and it's the receiver's job to distinguish them.

When you play a regular CD with the plain old CD Player app, do you get output through the digital out? If so, the DTS CD might work. Even so, one problem you might get is the CD Player trying to play the DTS datastream at the same time, which as Jeff mentioned would sound really bad. If it's too loud, you might even damage something.

Try playing it on the CD player first.

//Ken

 

[Max Leung]

Is this on Windows XP? There is a known problem with Windows XP not passing the DTS CD signal through the SP/DIF because of some fucked up upsampling issues (DTS CDs are 44.1KHz, while DTS DVDs use 48KHz) in the OS. You'll get silence, at best, or a crash at worst.

PowerDVD or WinDVD crash when I try to send the DTS signal directly to the receiver...I have to use the 6 speaker channel decoding option to play DTS CDs properly. I cannot pass the signal directly to the receiver, as Windows disallows the 44.1KHz stream!

I have an nForce motherboard BTW, which uses the 415D audio chip.

 

[Bill Slack]

Sorry I can't answer this question, but...

DTS CDs aren't encoded in an analog format. CDs aren't analog. They are recorded in the same way they are on LDs, in place of what would be LPCM data, but the data has be interpreted differently.

DD on LDs, however, is recorded on the analog tracks and you need an RF modulator to conver the analog (think modem here...) signal into a digital bitstream.

 

[Cliff Watson]

”I'm using a M-Audio 24/96 audio card connected to Onkyo 787 via digital coax cable. I get 6.1 surround w/DVDs.”
John,
The M Audio 2496 can play DTS CD audio under certain conditions. Several question for you, 1) which Delta 2496 card do you have, 2) what operating system are you using, 3) what Delta driver version are you using?

 

[John Gates]

Ken is correct!

I tried playing my DTS Audio CD on my old Onkyo CD changer, and it worked like a charm. I had (erroneously) assumed that, since a DVD player needed to be DTS that a CD player would also need to be DTS rated to play DTS audio CDs. Bad logic on my part. Apparently, the DTS digital stream is decoded by the receiver, and as long as I have optical out (which I do on the CD player), I'll be OK.

Back in business.

Thanks VERY MUCH for the thoughts and suggestions. I got my dose of Steve Miller Band last night.

John