[loafier]

Hi
I'm looking for a good soundcard under $200 that will let me listen to DVD movies in stereo with PowerDVD without clipping/artifacts. Are there any out there?

I want to build a HTPC. I want good sound quality, but I've not been able use pro cards for DVD playback on my main PC due to awful clipping. I've tried the RME Digi 96/8 and Audiophile 24/96.

If its important to know, my main PC is an MSI KT600 mobo with AMD XP 2100 and 512 MB of ram, and the HTPC I plan to build will be almost identical.

Has anyone tried the cheap Chaintech card or an EMU with DVD playback software?

 

[cadobhuk]

I watched alot of DVDs with my EMU and it sounds great.I dont know how clipping is supposed to sound but I dont haer any flaws of any sort.

 

[commando]

If you're getting clipping from cards of that quality it's probably a setup problem, I would have though.

* disclaimer: i've never tried them.

 

[loafier]

i'm not sure if "clipping" is the right word to describe the problem. There are gaps in the sound occuring every few MS that make for a stuttering effect.

 

[cadobhuk]

Thats not how those cards are supposed to work.You have a problem with the hardware or the drivers or something.

 

[loafier]

don't think its a driver issue; I have the newest drivers for the RME, but it still stutters. I know the RME hardware itself is fine, because it works great with foobar with ASIO playing regular music.

 

[commando]

Try a different application to play back the DVDs.

 

[cadobhuk]

Yeah,but there might be an issue with pci bus bandwidth or something like that.Try connecting your dvd-rom drive as a slave to your system harddrive (the one with windows and \program files),it worked for me when I had stutters while watching DVD with my EMU

 

[loafier]

Commando:
I did try WinDVD and some other software. Same trouble

Cadobhuk:
PCI limitations could be it. All but one pci slot is filled in my system. But, I was able to use an Audigy for DVD sound playback and it worked fine without stuttering. Unfortunetly there's the resampling issue with it. Tommorrow, I'll test the computer with just a GFX card, network card, and the RME and see if that works. Maybe the RME is more demanding than the Audigy?

 

[Wodgy]

What you're describing is an IRQ conflict. Search Google for hints on resolving this.

 

[loafier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy What you're describing is an IRQ conflict. Search Google for hints on resolving this.

Searched through the device manager, and can't find any conflicts with the RME or any IDE controlers.

 

[Wodgy]

It's not just the RME and IDE controllers that use IRQs. Most of the cards you've got in the computer will be using IRQs. You'll probably have to change settings in the BIOS or rearrange the cards. I haven't had to deal with this kind of problem since moving to laptops (except one particular laptop where the USB controller shared an IRQ with the sound card), so I can't provide specific details on how to resolve this. You'll have to do a search.

 

[loafier]

What I meant was I searched through all of the devices(cards, usb, firewire, ide, etc) listed in the device manager and found no other devices using the same IRQ as the RME or IDE controler. The RME sound card is in a shared slot, but the slot that it shares with is empty. The only two devices I found sharing IRQs were the network card and GFX card, but both work fine.

 

[Budley007]

Most of the "stuttering" I ever experienced with DVD playback was due to MPEG decoding. Make sure you're using software decoding. If so, see if you can free up some resources. Any DVD playback software will try to buffer the signal so it has time to decode for smooth playback. If PowerDVD allows you to alter these setting you might try experimenting with it. If that doesn't work, see if you have some utilities running in the background that suck up the CPU cycles. Sometimes these utilities think you're idle because DVD playback doesn't seem like "real" activity to them. Chances are the problem is not with the RME. Goodluck with it bro, and let us know how it works out.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by loafier Commando: I did try WinDVD and some other software. Same trouble Cadobhuk: PCI limitations could be it. All but one pci slot is filled in my system. But, I was able to use an Audigy for DVD sound playback and it worked fine without stuttering. Unfortunetly there's the resampling issue with it. Tommorrow, I'll test the computer with just a GFX card, network card, and the RME and see if that works. Maybe the RME is more demanding than the Audigy?

For DVD-V playback the resampling should be no problem because DVD-V audio tracks naitively decode to 16/48 (what the Audigy resamples to).