Home Theater / PC merge! (I'll give it a shot here)

[briansmccabe]

Hi again everyone -

Here's my objectives:

A) play DVDs (an ISO images of DVDs) on my PC, but view them on my television and through my home theater speakers

B) play captured video material and other miscellaneous video files on my PC but view them on my tv and through my home theater speakers

I guess maybe it stands to reason that if I can do one of the above, the other should be a success as well, but I wouldn't really know.

My PC has an ATI AIW 9800 XT Pro. This card has a variety of output capabilities, and the one I am primarily interested in is sending the video to my tv via either an RF mod, a VCR or my reciever.

I am of course also interested in sending the audio to my HT, and I'd like the DVDs to maintain full 5.1 sound. The ATI card seems to touch on this by virtue of the fact that it came with some bizzarre connector cables that pretty clearly involve sending audio out of the PC (one hookup is labeled as "S/PDIF" and the other separate hookup has a jack labeled "Digital Audio" - these cables have more than jsut that on them but I won't go into that unless needed).

My confusion is that these connector cables are coming out of my VIDEO card. I inquired about this elsewhere and was told that the ATI is not capable of exporting audio. If this is the case, would I need to simply wire some / all of these connections into my sound card? If so, do I NEED a 5.1 sound card to then go to my HT? My current sound card is just the crap on the motherboard so I am fine with upgrading if necc.

Clearly I am quite new to all of this so any help would likely be tremendously helpful.

Thanks everyone -

Brian Mc

[reboot]

All you need are the right cables from the PC to the TV.
Some sort of software to play the stuff, and let the dual display portion of the video card software/drivers handle the TV out (via S-Video or SCART or Composite, whichever your video card has, that the monitor isn't using).
Normally audio is done from the sound card, and I'm not familiar enough with your ATI to figure out why it would say "digital audio" on it. Read the manual maybe?
Some PVR software would also be a good choice, with a remote, so you can control the PC from wherever you're sitting.
If you had a good capture card, you could use the PC as a total TiVo type PVR solution.
If you want DD5.1 on your HT, then you need something that outputs DD5.1
Your current sound card probably will not.

[briansmccabe]

I'm convinced that part of what I am doing wrong is that I am not using the proper cabling. I'm also trying to send sound to the HT where there is no sound to be sent because it was not being routed through the sound card. You're right, my on-board sound is definitely not 5.1 so I am going to get a "real" sound card tonight. I am also going to look more closely into the different cabling options I may have. I use a special coax cable going from my component DVD player to my reciever and it cost a bit of dough so I can only imagine what I will need to cough up to get this to work properly.

thanks for your help!

brian mc

[reboot]

You are going to need some sort of good cable for S-Video out, or whatever. Some shielding is always a good idea, especially if it's travelling over a distance greater than about 3 feet, or near any other electrical interference.
If you're handy with a soldering iron, you can make your own shielded cables with cablevision coax, and put your own ends on. Takes practice to make a good cable.

Please read the fine print on the sound card box, and do some research on the net. Some claim they can "do" DD5.1, but not all cards can output 5.1, more likely DD2.0 stereo.
Higher end Turtle Beach and Soundblasters can do it. Look at the outputs on the sound card. It'll be obvious what does what, and if it's only stereo.

Consider purchasing a good capture/tuner card, with a remote. Then you can use the PC for recording like a VCR, watching Live TV, and save the precious stuff to dvdr too. More versatile than just a TV, with a DVD player hooked up

[briansmccabe]

honestly, I think the one area I am good in thus far is the video card. I am 99.9% certain that the ATI card can "pass" a DD5.1 signal to a 5.1-compliant sound card. I say this because other posters on other forums have stated they are doing just this. Also, the video-out on the AIW 9800 is a 10-pin connector, and among other things, the connector cable provided with the card has a S/PDIF jack that (presumably) could be wired into a 5.1 sound card and then the sound card is sent to the HT. I think now that I have spent the entire second half of my work day researching this stuff that I am closer than ever to making actual progress, thanks to the help I have recieved.

Thanks -

brian mc