Auzen X-fi Home Theater 7.1 HDMI 1.3!

Nice thing about being a reviewr is I get to speak with people much higher up the chain then generic tech support. The info I gave you was verified. It was very surprising to see it operating in such a way but it does non the less... It may just be a glitch or something that was overlooked.

As for what is going on wiht you, maybe you just have a glitch with WIn7...

 

Just stumbled onto something interesting while testing a workaround for Lavcat.

Sinced he has no Output Information in W7 using PowerDVD, i thought i would see if ReClock would be a suitable alternative for him, and i discovered that when using wasapi exclusive mode on ReClock and using PowerDVD10 it reports that the output is what it should be, as in 24/48 with the DTS HD track on my BluRay's, as well as showing as the correct 16/48 or 24/96 on the PCM tracks, while TMT3 still shows 16/48 on them all with the exact same settings in Reclock, no idea if anyone else has come across this.

On a side note it also has flawless playback with 1080p mkv files, with GPU Acceleration reducing CPU usage to around 2-3%, or even lower if i use SPDIF, cracking player, has definetly improved alot recently.

 

That workaround seems to be an option. I just ran into the same problem using a Forte when I was trying to watch some movies on my PC. I only wanted to output sound to me headphones so I thought I wouldn't need the HTHD in the first place.
Right now I'm running Win7 with PDVD10 and every movie I tried so far only gave my the typical 16bit/48KHz downsampled audio.
Is there anything else worth a try other than extracting the audio from the disc?

 

nope the extracing is your only choice unless you move on to the auzen hdmi card.

 

Great, thanks for the answer! I'll have to try it out then and see or rather hear how much work the difference may be worth to me. Half an hour here or there or 80-90€ for the other card. Well...

 

If you are talking about sending different stream to different outputs.....FYI, the Bravura actually has the speakers and headphones configured as totally different outputs. You can actually send a different stream to the headphones, speakers and S/Pdif!
I foudn that part very interesting as you could actually connect the card up to allow different Zones, such as playing music in your room watching a movie in the PC room or playing a game using the other outputs. Just for example.

 

Does the ReClock wasapi mode not work for you then, i've had flawless playback with every BluRay so far using it.
I can audibly hear a difference between PDVD10 non downsampled and TMT3 downsampled, but i'm not going to rule out placebo effect, or even differences in the audio decoders used by the two players, and i have yet to much comparisons of PDVD10 without ReClock.

 

@robscix: Thanks, that sounds interesting too What I meant was that I did "only" get the Forte (and not the HTHD) because I never planned to connect speakers to my PC, only headphones. I thought I'd never use the HDMI audio part anyhow so why pay double the price for the card.
That was the initial thought. Now I got my hands on a Blu-Ray drive and thought it would be a nice idea to be able to watch movies in full quality.
I did think the card would only prohibit full quality sound for digital connections, not analogue too.

 

Well S/Pdif cannot handle that high of resolution...just too much data so you need the HDMI hardware. However, this card outputs full resolution over analog also.
With audio sources I alway try and think of the future also...just because you don't want to do something right now doesn't meant you won't want to in the future. I always figure the more features the better especially when it has to do with newer technology. Might be something you want to get into in the future.

 

Seems like that would have been the better idea, yes. I'll give the ripping workaround a try and then maybe I'll have to change cards again

 

Well, ripping is not really a work around and is just more work!!
When I used the HTHD 7.1 I just popped a Blue ray in the drive and up comes the video with full resolution surround sound through analog. Nice stuff!
That alone is what made the card a great unit from my perspective. Many use receivers etc with it but the point that you don't have to is a major selling point.

 

Well you would have to use a blu ray ripper software and then anydvd/bd to get around the pap the protection. While the blu ray movie is in the drive. When you do it. I tried it because another person mention it in a thread a while back.
Sure it takes up space But it does work and you get full res blu ray audio without the need of a HDAV/X-FI HDMI. I did that with my blu ray movies that I have.Tho you can just do the audio using another tool. But I usually do the whole movie so I dont have to keep putting my movies in my drive to watch them besides getting the ful blu ray audio without having a HDAV any more.

 

I ripped a BD today and it takes ages I'll take the easy route and so I ordered a HTHD.

 

Yep, add in a BD ROM and you're good to go.

 

That's what I planned to do, yes. I actually didn't even know about the restrictions of the PAP until I got the BD-ROM some days ago.
If now the new driver comes out like it's being rumored I'd be all set

 

Yes, the card will allow full resolution audio output over analog in Vista and above. It will downsample in XP.

 

I received my card yesterday and Blu Ray movies are a blast with this

It seems that I have an issue here and there though. Is ist possible that there's some kind of bug with the sample rate? When the card is freshly installed, the maximum rate I can set is 96KHz at 24 bit. If I switch to entertainment mode and start PowerDVD, I can even choose 192KHz. If I keep it at that rate the card seems to reset itself though here and there in game mode or when I start specific games. Modern Warfare 2 works for example, Bad Company 2 or Splinter Cell won't start or have no audio at all.
It should be "enough" to keep the sample rate at 96KHz right as PDVD does some upsampling on the movies?

 

Some new drivers out: http://translate.google.co.kr/trans...oundprime.com/bbs/zboard.php?id=notice&no=221

 

IIRC, it depends on the mode. So, entertainment mode will be 24/192, gaming mode 24/96...

 

Oh ok. Seems like that setting hadn't changed when I switched modes so it gave me some problems as I described.
The new drivers are pretty nice btw., much faster when changing modes for example.