Looking for sound card that can handle 5.1 optic input without delay

My goal is to hear both PC and Xbox360slim at the same time, without any delay, in 5.1 quality.

The method to achieve it is plugging-in the sound from the Xbox360slim to the PC.

If you chose to stick with Stereo for the Xbox360S then you have no delay and everything is great.

But if you want to hear the Xbox360S in 5.1 you are going to face a nasty Delay. (600ms on Creative SB:A, About the same on Realtek 888)

To avoid this you can use several different methods to enable a delay on your screen, which will sync up the sound and vision but if your activity is gaming, your in bad luck.



I was emailing Asus (among many others) to see if there is a solution, some hardware that will manage to do the job.
Asus don't have such hardware, here is a quota of there email:
 
Quote:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

The line-in port in this card is for audio recording or processing. I don't
suggest you doing this. It will lead to audio quality deterioration and get
significant delay.
We don't have such card for your situation. You can search it from internet for a try.

Best Regards,

-Removed_Name-

Click to expand...

 


At this point I don't really know where else can I find out if its even possible and\or how to do it.

Whats your take on this? got any idea? (can be any means, an hardware to sit betwen pc\xbox and user, any thing..)

 

No replay, I am disapointed, so no one have an idea as to how can this issue be solved? 

I really want to do the same thing, unfortunately, it seems there aren't really any options. The only card that really works with reasonable delay is the X-fi cards with the hacked drivers which enable dobly/dts decodign from s/pdif in. I asked Claro about this a while back when I was getting the Claro Halo, and this is the response I got:
 
 
Quote:

Claro halo doesn't provide AC3 decoding such as Dolby Digital or dts.
For licensing and copyright protection purposes, soundcard manufacturers are
effectively prevented from adding DD/DTS decoders to their products. The
reasoning is that the only legal use of DD/DTS decoders is for playback of
licensed soundtracks from DVD movies. In your PC, a DVD player software must
decode your DD/DTS soundtrack, NOT the soundcard. So as far as I know, there
is no PCI type sound card which can AC3 signal from S/PDIF input. Because of
the above-mentioned licensing and copyright protections, this is not
possible. So you can't use Claro card as external digital decoder. Claro halo can decode 2ch PCM signal only. So if you set to PCM (digital
stereo) in XBOX audio output option, you can hear 2ch stereo sound from
Claro halo.

Click to expand...

 
As you can see, it seems the reason that the option isn't found in cards anymore is for copyright protection reasons. However, if you do find a solution, i would be greatly interested. I love gaming with headphones, and want to get 5.1 simulation in them when playing xbox games. I used to do this with my X-fi before it died, although every 30 mins or so I would have to unplug and replug the optical connector in order to reduce the delay (not sure why, but as time passed, the delay got greater). When first plugged in, there was almost no delay, but after half hour, there was half second or more, which is almost unplayable.

Eureka!!!!!

I solved it!

So, you want to have virtual 5.1 (Dolby headphones) from your pc...
and at the same time, you want to have virtual 5.1 (Dolby headphones) from your xbox

and you want to hear both with one per of headphones, so you wouldnt need to unplug any thing ever again and yet could ... halo:reach with skype, or BF:BC2 on your pc with skype? or just watch a movie at ether? right?

well, NOW YOU CAN!

Heres the setup:

xbox360slim configured to play 5.1 --> optic cable to Turtle Beach Ear Force DSS (this box takes the 5.1 input and converts it to Dolby Headphones for normal stereo headset) --> 3.5 cable to the pc's line in(blue jack).
From PC's line out (green jack) --> to your amp\receiver for sound quality *optional* --> your headset


Content played on xbox will be playing in 5.1 which will be transalated to virtual 5.1 (stereo), as far as the pc care, its just plain stereo content, as far as you care: Dolby headphones.
Content played on PC will be played (Thanks to your Asus [for example] card on Dolby Headphones, or Thanks to your Creative card on CMSS-3D) and sent via 3.5 cable to your headset.


when it was optic line in>pc>3.5 line out, there was a delay because said hardware (sound card) was not ment to do this task.

This hardware has this as it's goal. And as far as your pc care its analog input to analog output = no delay from pc!




The Quest is finally over ....... what do you say?


p.s.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/product/games/headset/turtle-beach-ear-force-dss.html
Heres the page for the Ear Force DSS