X-Fi Platinum + Z5500 Dolby Digital Help

You need to read your manual.

There should be a button that changes the source input to "digital coaxial."

Ok a couple of things. Yes your sound card supports those formats but unless the source audio is in that format you can't 'upmix' to it. To use these formats set your xi-fi to use SPDIF passthrough for digital. That way the digital signal is decoded by the speakers. The speakers must be set to coax at this time and you will have to press 'effect' until it cycles through to dolby digital. The best way to test this is with a DVD. Use a program like power dvd and make sure it is set up to use SPDIF output. If you can't get this to work just set the speakers to use 6 ch direct and let your i-fi do the decoding, the signal will be converted to analogue earlier this way tho.

I have put it on SPDIF bypass and I know how to source through the "effects" and I am using WinDVD 8.

In windvd 8 it says under "audio center" - "technology" it supports Intervideo ICE, Dolby Pro Logic IIx music mode, Dolby Pro Logic IIx movie mode.

Could that be the source of the problem? It says that Windvd 8 supports (Dolby® Digital EX, Dolby® Pro Logic IIx, Dolby® Headphone, DTS 2.0, WAV, WMA, MP3, MPEG-4, non-protected iTunes)

I even put audio technology at no expansion and in the DVD menu (on the actual movie menu) set it on Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX and my Z5500 isnt picking it up.

(playing Star Wars ep III)

I did hook up a 360 to it using opitcal and it picked up these formats just fine.

I'm guessing your DVD player software has Dolby Digital and DTS locked, which can happen depending on the version.

You can try VLC media player, it's a free software player that can play DVDs. The deluxe and pro versions of most DVD player software have DTS/DD5.1 audio enabled as well.

Ever since I switched over to Vista I've been having some problems with VLC. I just downloaded PowerDVD and still having the same problem as WinDVD 8.

DirectSound and DirectX have been ditched--and DirectX 10 (the replacement) has not been released yet. This is why soundcards and video cards are struggling in Vista.

VLC uses DirectX to software decode a lot of videos. All you have to do is set VLC to OpenGL mode--> Preferences, Video, Output modules, Advanced.

So your thinking its an issue with vista?

Well it still sounds freaken awesome and I'm not really complaining. Just thought i should ask.

Thanks!

^

Well I don't know what your personal issues are with VLC, but it could be Vista.

if you want decoding done by your speaker set then use SPDIF option in Power DVD. Similar option might be buried somewhere in X-Fi software, I think I saw it under XP anyway

Well, I've done all the obvious. But I found the problem it looks like the Creative driver for vista doesnt support Dolby Digital and DTS signals. Awesome!

Known issues:

This driver does not support the following:
Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS™ signals
DVD-Audio
DirectSound®-based EAX games
6.1 speaker mode.
SPDIF passthrough is supported on Vista 32-bit only.
Applications from the original Sound Blaster X-Fi CD will not work with this download.

Then your only recourse right now is to find a DVD player software that supports DD5.1/DTS SPDIF bypass, which should be the case with anything with "deluxe" on it.