Wales
Hi. Sorry for the vague title. I just have a little question regarding the format of the sound outputted over HDMI from my PC, and SPDIF too, for that matter.
Basically, my motherboard (nv 8300 based) does 7.1 PCM out over HDMI, along with Dolby D and DTS bitstream. This is all very nice and works well.
When I have to play something that is not Dolby D or DTS encoded, like an MP3 for example, it is output as PCM. Now, what I want to know is how come the format of sound outputted does not match the format of sound I'm playing. I'm not talking about the codec here, I know you can't bitstream MP3 or FLAC or anything, what I'm talking about is things like the number of channels and the sample rate.
My amp (Onkyo 705) shows on its display the type of signal being received and decoded. When I play, for example, a stereo MP3 on my computer which was sampled at 44.1KHz, my amp still shows that it's receiving a 7.1 multichannel PCM signal at 192KHz. That's because that's the maximum sample rate and number of channels it supports, and what windows is set to output its system sounds in.
The thing is, I only really need 192KHz output if I'm playing a 192KHz file, which is quite rare. Why doesn't the computer change the output signal according to the input file? It does it perfectly fine when I play a DD5.1 file, it just bitstreams it and the amp picks it up as DD5.1, or DTS5.1, or DD2.0 or whatever. But when I convert to PCM, for some reason it always converts to 7.1ch 192KHz, which is pointless.
I don't need this upconverting, and although I know it's not really affecting sound quality, I'd still like to do away with it purely because it's handy to be able to just look at my amp's display and check what kind of sound is playing. If I play a 48KHz DVD audio track (one that's not bitstreamable) then I want the amp to show 48KHz on its display.
Is this possible? How would I go about accomplishing this?
Basically, my motherboard (nv 8300 based) does 7.1 PCM out over HDMI, along with Dolby D and DTS bitstream. This is all very nice and works well.
When I have to play something that is not Dolby D or DTS encoded, like an MP3 for example, it is output as PCM. Now, what I want to know is how come the format of sound outputted does not match the format of sound I'm playing. I'm not talking about the codec here, I know you can't bitstream MP3 or FLAC or anything, what I'm talking about is things like the number of channels and the sample rate.
My amp (Onkyo 705) shows on its display the type of signal being received and decoded. When I play, for example, a stereo MP3 on my computer which was sampled at 44.1KHz, my amp still shows that it's receiving a 7.1 multichannel PCM signal at 192KHz. That's because that's the maximum sample rate and number of channels it supports, and what windows is set to output its system sounds in.
The thing is, I only really need 192KHz output if I'm playing a 192KHz file, which is quite rare. Why doesn't the computer change the output signal according to the input file? It does it perfectly fine when I play a DD5.1 file, it just bitstreams it and the amp picks it up as DD5.1, or DTS5.1, or DD2.0 or whatever. But when I convert to PCM, for some reason it always converts to 7.1ch 192KHz, which is pointless.
I don't need this upconverting, and although I know it's not really affecting sound quality, I'd still like to do away with it purely because it's handy to be able to just look at my amp's display and check what kind of sound is playing. If I play a 48KHz DVD audio track (one that's not bitstreamable) then I want the amp to show 48KHz on its display.
Is this possible? How would I go about accomplishing this?