Any recommendations for HDMI/DVI?

[hardyb]

I am using my home theater set for my pc so I want to know if there are any HDMI cards that I can use that would be good for gaming as well. I am also interested to know if DVI would be better as I am running the audio out anyways. The problem is my receiver only has 2 digital inputs so I would rather run everything into my tv and run one digital out to the receiver. I would really like hdmi since it is digital anyways. Does the HDMI run sound with video cards?

Brock

 

[mpjesse]

Keep in mind that there are cables that will go from DVI to HDMI... and it won't interupt the HDCP encoding. The only catch is (obviously) you can't carry audio over DVI. Also, DVI is always digital as well.

Regardless, you're not going to find a HDMI video card that'll carry audio... and you probably never will. Doing so would require enourmous cooperation between the PC graphics industry and the PC audio industry.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Keep in mind that there are cables that will go from DVI to HDMI... and it won't interupt the HDCP encoding. The only catch is (obviously) you can't carry audio over DVI. Also, DVI is always digital as well.

Actually DVI-A is analogue only. Rare, but available as both and input and and output.

Regardless, you're not going to find a HDMI video card that'll carry audio... and you probably never will. Doing so would require enourmous cooperation between the PC graphics industry and the PC audio industry.

Well depends on how it's carried, some ATi cards have SPDIF in on the card so that the HDMI out can carry both Audio and Video.
http://www.powercolor.com/global/news_20060720_X1600PRO_HDMI.html

Also both ATi and nV have been working on audio on VPU as well as incorporating an audio stream into their cards (no need for SPDIF external it would be internal like the old CD audio cables.

This SI solution is what ATi seems to have been looking into for their duties;
http://www.siliconimage.com/images/products/1930_715.gif

The biggest problem is that the only cards currently with HDMI out suck for high res gaming. Supposedly that will change sometime this generation (G8x , R6xx) just before going to DisplayPort.

 

[mpjesse]

well I'll be a monkey's uncle.

but correct me if I'm wrong, the only audio that would trasmit from the PC would be audio from a DVD or program with SPDIF out, right? so... watching a video in WMP wouldn't transmit the audio over HDMI. is that right?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well it depends on the implementation, because you could do it the way Dolby Digtal Live and DTS Connect work and do mono, stereo, multi-channel conversions to a PCM DOLBY/DTS feed. So you could do both, it just depends on what they decide to use for the codecs (DDL is Realtek, DTS is CMedia) they are already out there on dedicated add-in cards and MoBos, so there's 4 ways they could do it IMO, either via the direct PCM connection (like the old CD cables), via the PCIeLanes, on the VPU itself (least likely until they are way more powerful than needed) or on the graphics card (only likely for some solutions), and speaking of which...
I have a feeling that this is the 'All new features' for the AIW series that AMD was talking about.

Oh, and PS, Laptops and pre-built media PCs are likely going to provide this functionality first IMO, as their are end-end solutions and it's easier to fit the part for a specific task instead of part things that might be incompatible on their own. Similar to how Sony was the first with a custom GF7300GS with HDMi, likely the same thing will happen for the Audio+Video solutions. But I may have seen a MoBo recently that supports HDMI 1.3 with audio, but I can't remember right now (went out for dinner tonight don't have my A game right now. :twisted: )