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Any Windows Media Center experts? Want to disable SPDIF passthrough...

mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
edited February 2011 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
And google isn't doing shit for me.

Is there a way to force WMC to play multichannel audio (AC3/DTS) over multichannel PCM (basically the 5.1 speakers) rather than as an SPDIF passthrough? I don't want to go into why, so much, but my life would be much easier if WMC would just decode the Dolby Digital on my Live/Recorded TV and play it over the "speakers" (speakers being a 5.1 multichannel PCM output) rather than pass it out as a digital stream to my receiver.

My output is an ATI Radeon 4550. Going into the sound device setup, it appears I can't disable Dolby Digital as a format...that was my first thought.

Any suggestions?

mcdermott on

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    mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Okay, I'll explain just a bit further. Basically, my receiver is stupid and doesn't like to transition from multichannel PCM to Dolby Digital...it gets angry. Usually this results in some kind of funky sound looping, then WMC tells me it can't play the file.

    I'm pretty sure it's just the multichannel PCM thing, because I can go into sound device settings, tell it it's only a 2.0 speaker setup (so then it's just stereo PCM), and it transitions back and forth just fine all day long.

    I'm trying to take advantage of multichannel PCM in other apps (like MPC-HC), because it's a lot easier than (for instance) getting ac3filter set up to convert multichannel AAC to AC3 or DTS (and involves one less lossy compression step to boot).

    So the best thing, for my use, would be to disable SPDIF passthrough altogether and have everything decoded then played over the "speakers" (the multichannel PCM stream).

    mcdermott on
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    bigwahbigwah Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    You would probably get better answers over at thegreenbutton.com People over there have a ton of different setups so someone is bound to have an answer (they have helped me several times with my HTPC).

    bigwah on
    LoL Tribunal:
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    mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    bigwah wrote: »
    You would probably get better answers over at thegreenbutton.com People over there have a ton of different setups so someone is bound to have an answer (they have helped me several times with my HTPC).

    Thanks, I'll check 'em out. This is my first proper HTPC, and I have no idea what forums are good. I just know that regular googling gave me a LOT to sift through, and none was helpful!

    mcdermott on
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    bigwahbigwah Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    thegreenbutton.com and pcmediacenter.com.au/forum/ are my two best resources for anything windows media center related (which I use because of my ceton tuner). Hopefully they can get you some answers.

    bigwah on
    LoL Tribunal:
    "Was cursing, in broken english at his team, and at our team. made fun of dead family members and mentioned he had sex with a dog."
    "Hope he dies tbh but a ban would do."
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