Anyone out there using a 9400GT to successfully decode TV3 on FreeviewHD?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Anyone out there using a 9400GT to successfully decode TV3 on FreeviewHD?

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62 posts

Master Geek

#192295 27-Jan-2009 15:29

nofam: Thanks Nety/Limegreen

Is there any reason why you can't just use HDMI for video only, and use the S/PDIF coax/optical out on the MoBo for the audio instead of getting both video & audio through HDMI? Is would there be an issue with the two getting out of sync?

And does DVI-to-HDMI mean the picture is lesser quality than if the card had a native, inbuilt HDMI port?

So many questions!!

No reason at all... I'm doing just that: (HDMI for video, SPDIF coax for audio)... no probs with sync

HDMI video is basically DVI... HDMI adds audio and other comminication goodies... So to answer your question, no, you will not loose any quality using DVI

Nety

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#192299 27-Jan-2009 15:41

nofam: Thanks Nety/Limegreen

Is there any reason why you can't just use HDMI for video only, and use the S/PDIF coax/optical out on the MoBo for the audio instead of getting both video & audio through HDMI? Is would there be an issue with the two getting out of sync?

Depends what you are doing. I am using passthough for the sound to the TV because I have to. Because the video card supported passthough the TV would only accept sound from the HDMI connection. However on my old video card that did not support SPDIF passthough I feed the TV with a simple 3.5mm stero plug.

I also feed the same SPDIF signal to my A/V receiver so that we get surround sound when watching movies.

nofam:
And does DVI-to-HDMI mean the picture is lesser quality than if the card had a native, inbuilt HDMI port?

So many questions!!

Same signal different plug. So in short no the picture will be exactly the same as from a video card with a HDMI port.

Questions is what we are here for. To help each other.

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Nety

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#192300 27-Jan-2009 15:42

You bet me too it Shane...

ShaneT

62 posts

Master Geek

#192307 27-Jan-2009 16:02

Nety: You bet me too it Shane...

Haha ...all good! - but you did raise a good point worth highlighting:

Nofam, what is taking care of your audio? If it's your TV (yuk), you probably wont be able to split the video and audio, as the TV will most likely only take audio from the HDMI input the video is on (this may not be true for some models). If you are using a receiver for audio, you will be able to split the signals as most decent receivers can mix and match their input signals... or you can run SPDIF to receiver and HDMI-video straight to the TV...

...food for thought...

It may also pay to point out that, SPDIF does not support TrueHD or DTS-MA (high def digital audio) due to band-width limitations... weather you're using SPDIF-HDMI passthrough or not....so don't expect to see your receiver (if you have one) indicating TrueHD (or the likes) if you have a bluray drive. Instead you'll get a downmixed AC3 or DTS bitstream..... Lots of discussions going on about this at the mo, and not for this thread

...so applogies for going on a tangent, but I thought it worth mentioning

limegreen

103 posts

Master Geek

#192312 27-Jan-2009 16:20

Just a note, my ASUS card didn't come with a DVI>HDMI adaptor, so I did have to purchase the cable separately.
I run the audio to an old stero system with 3.5mm to dual RCA cable off the MoBo. This provides adequate sound. The only slightly gutting thing is that the old receiver gets a bit of electrical interference from the PC [:(]
On a slightly different note, as noted in a thread by me elsewhere, the audio off the card sounds much better than the audio from an old Pioneer DVD (comparing playing a CD on the DVD player versus listening to a FLAC of same CD on the pc, through the same stereo equipment).

ShaneT

62 posts

Master Geek

#192315 27-Jan-2009 16:29

limegreen: Just a note, my ASUS card didn't come with a DVI>HDMI adaptor, so I did have to purchase the cable separately.

oops.. my bad! ...I got it confused with the 9600GT which I had tried and came with an adaptor.... For the 9400GT I did have to buy an adaptor from DSE

Pomphobetus

21 posts

Geek

#192333 27-Jan-2009 17:19

1gkar: I see your point. Have just checked & it seems ludicrous but, unless the manufacturers are misidentifying their cards, it seems silent cards are on their way out. Looked at Pricespy: 8500GT; 8600GT & 9500GT & their aren't very many silent cards, at all. Being on a bit*h-speel tonight, maybe Vodafone have bought up ALL the budget silent cards & scrapped them (aimed @ VP not you)

I noticed one respondent to another thread stated he recommended a Palit 9400GT passive card.

I have not seen any recent 9400 cards, but I have been looking at this 9600 one which seems silent and comes with an HDMI adaptor. This will not enable high definition sound or any other sort of sound to pass through the HDMI cable so you will need a separate SPDIF connection. This will do DTS sound etc just fine but not uncompressed Blu-Ray sound. I did see an ASUS video card on the market that will do sound from BluRay and some Motherboards advertising that they will do it too.

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ShaneT

62 posts

Master Geek

#192422 28-Jan-2009 09:03

Pomphobetus: I have not seen any recent 9400 cards, but I have been looking at this 9600 one which seems silent and comes with an HDMI adaptor.

Just a word of caution regarding cards with heatpipes: The Asus EN9600GT Silent card is very tall due to the heatpipes and may not fit inside some cases (especially HTPC ones) due to the heatpipes... I found this out the hard way... Otherwise a great card!! ...so, just make sure the heatpipes dont exceed the height of the board...

Pomphobetus: This will not enable high definition sound or any other sort of sound to pass through the HDMI cable so you will need a separate SPDIF connection.

Just want to clarify that, using a seperate SPDIF out (other then the graphics passthrough) will still not support lossless hi-def digital audio (TrueHD, DTS-MA...) either. Cards with passthrough pins simply allow you to pass the SPDIF audio over HDMI, but makes no difference to the audio whatever you choose.

Pomphobetus: I did see an ASUS video card on the market that will do sound from BluRay and some Motherboards advertising that they will do it too.

Cool - could you possibly post some links? wouldnt mind seeing where they're up to...

cheers

Nety

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#192426 28-Jan-2009 09:24

ShaneT:

Pomphobetus: I did see an ASUS video card on the market that will do sound from BluRay and some Motherboards advertising that they will do it too.

Cool - could you possibly post some links? wouldnt mind seeing where they're up to...

lol my current motherboard says something on the box to the affect of "Full HD sound from blu rays/HD DVD's using onboard sound"...

Kind of funny that as first off my motherboard does not have HDMI and there are only one or two cards on the market that CAN bitstream via HDMI and they cost more then my motherboard did by a fair margin. They are also seem at this stage to be very buggy.

Unfortunalty most of the HD sound talk at this stage is just marketing talk.

Pomphobetus

21 posts

Geek

#192434 28-Jan-2009 10:00

Cool - could you possibly post some links? wouldnt mind seeing where they're up to...

Still trying to find it. This one says it has 7.1 sound via HDMI built in to the video card but it does not specify HD sound for Blu-Ray. It has a fan though, and I haven't played with one to see if it is silent enough for a home cinema. Many Gigabyte boards are advertising HD sound from Blu-ray, as mentioned above, but they do not have HDMI outputs so not really sure what it means. I would be surprised if it was just a marketing ploy as they are quite specific, and I expect their competition would pounce on any misleading advertisements.

Nety

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#192443 28-Jan-2009 10:55

Pomphobetus:

Cool - could you possibly post some links? wouldnt mind seeing where they're up to...

Still trying to find it. This one says it has 7.1 sound via HDMI built in to the video card but it does not specify HD sound for Blu-Ray. It has a fan though, and I haven't played with one to see if it is silent enough for a home cinema. Many Gigabyte boards are advertising HD sound from Blu-ray, as mentioned above, but they do not have HDMI outputs so not really sure what it means. I would be surprised if it was just a marketing ploy as they are quite specific, and I expect their competition would pounce on any misleading advertisements.

Sorry but the discription on that video card is a bit miss leading.. It can like a lot of cards pass though 7.1 sound using spdif headers. It does not have a soundcard built into it.

As for the motherboards it looks like realtek have at least one chipset that apparently with the right software will output to analogue the lossless signal. It does not have any way to send the lossless information on to anything else as it only has spdif outputs. However realtek are not exactly known for their high quality sound cards so not sure if the output would work out to be better then a good quality soundcard's spdif output or not.

Nety

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#192444 28-Jan-2009 11:07

Pomphobetus:

Cool - could you possibly post some links? wouldnt mind seeing where they're up to...

Still trying to find it. This one says it has 7.1 sound via HDMI built in to the video card but it does not specify HD sound for Blu-Ray. It has a fan though, and I haven't played with one to see if it is silent enough for a home cinema. Many Gigabyte boards are advertising HD sound from Blu-ray, as mentioned above, but they do not have HDMI outputs so not really sure what it means. I would be surprised if it was just a marketing ploy as they are quite specific, and I expect their competition would pounce on any misleading advertisements.

Sorry but that video card is just like a lot of others. It can passthough 7.1 sound via a spdif header. It does not have any kind of soundcard on board. The way the web site describes it is a little miss leading.

As for the mother boards after a bit of a look it appears that there is at least one realtek on board soundcard that can handle the lossless audio steams and output it to the analogue headers. It does not have any ability to send the lossless sound onto another device ie a A/V receiver.
As realtek are not exactly known for making high quality soundcards I am not sure just how good the signal coming out of the analogue ports would be.

limegreen

103 posts

Master Geek

#192448 28-Jan-2009 11:34

Blatant thread hijack! Nety, Nice choice of case and PSU [:D]. How do you find the acoustifans compared to the silverstone fans that come with the LC16? The one that runs on the MoBo 4 pin is quiet enough, but the second fan just runs at full speed, so currently have it disconnected because it's too noisy...

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#192452 28-Jan-2009 12:07

Hijack indeed

I am happy with the fans purchase. They are not cheap but running them at reasonable speeds they are very very quiet. At full speed you can notice them but I have one connected via a molex speed control cable running on low speed the other I have going to the MOBO with cool'n quiet enabled in the bios. That way it only speeds up if it needs to.

Also of note I mounted the power supply with the fan facing inwards so that it would help to keep that corner of the case cool. I also blocked the case opening by where the CPU lives so that the air is forced in from the front and past the HDD. Works well.

limegreen

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Master Geek

#192457 28-Jan-2009 12:16

I also mounted the PSU round that way, in the hope that it will pull some air from the graphics card (although the tuners are somewhat in the way). I started to wonder if the PSU is almost a bit good, as the fan seems to be running on its slowest settings most of the time.

The fan attached to the cool'n'quiet is tolerable (that's the only one plugged in at the moment). I might look to replace the other fan, or at least slow it. What did you use to block the CPU vent?

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