HDMI on a PC has Sound?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Albert
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Albert

Hear that HDMI also sends sound via the cable. Does that mean if you
purchase a HDMI card for video in a PC the sound will be integrated
into that port and if you plug it into a monitor w/speakers that has
an HDMI connection you would not need to run a separate cable from the
sound card to the sounds ports on the monitor?

What if you plus an HDMI video card into a HDTV with HDMI ports, does
sound go through that as well when using the TV in PC mode.
 
Albert said:
Hear that HDMI also sends sound via the cable. Does that mean if you
purchase a HDMI card for video in a PC the sound will be integrated
into that port and if you plug it into a monitor w/speakers that has
an HDMI connection you would not need to run a separate cable from the
sound card to the sounds ports on the monitor?

What if you plus an HDMI video card into a HDTV with HDMI ports, does
sound go through that as well when using the TV in PC mode.
Click to expand...

Compared to most of the stuff I've been reading, this is not a bad
summary of the mess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Some ATI Eadeon HD cards appear to have "audio across DVI" capability.
There is a review comment here, where the purchaser of the card, discovered
all about the audio feature.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125072

"Cons: Do not install the audio driver of this card. It overwrote my audio
driver and made itself windows default. When I tried to change defaults
the old driver was not listed. This card caused too much of a headache.
I would not recommend it."

The implication there, is the video card uses a separate audio driver, and
if you install it, it disables your system sound card somehow.

I've also seen postings, where the poster mentioned they had a
"mysterious audio device" in Device Manager, and they couldn't figure
out where it came from. (Someone eventually figured it out.)

I also cannot speak to the issue of OS support, as to how much of this
functionality is tied to Vista, or can be made to work in WinXP as well.

For example, this motherboard has an HDMI connector for its built-in
video, and audio capability exists over HDMI.

(GeForce7050PV based motherboard)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16813138061

"No HDMI audio drivers for WinXP, only vista."

"Cons: I have to have an audio cable plugged into the green audio out
in the back for the system to use the regular speakers which enables audio
through HDMI. It's kind of weird, but works." Ummm. Yeah. Weird.

It's like everything with computers - it's *supposed* to work... but

If you have any "good luck" stories, post back :-) Like if you manage
to get more than two channel audio with your new Nvidia HDMI interface.

I expect you'll have much better luck with devices like Blue Ray or
HD DVD players.

Paul
 
Also, I found this. On some slightly older video cards, they don't have the
ability to do the audio on the video card. So, instead, they include an
SPDIF connector on the video card. Apparently, you connect a cable from
the SPDIF output of your sound card, to the SPDIF on the video card, and
then that digital audio is mixed in with the video and sent over HDMI.

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/09/26/sapphire-churns-out-hdmi-card-bargain

The silicon that makes it work, is here. SIL1930.

http://www.siliconimage.com/images/products/1930_715.gif

So that is another twist on the same theme.

Paul
 
Paul,

Thanks for the great information. I guess I will have to do more
thinking about this or maybe wait a bit for the technology hurdles to
work themselves out. Want I want to do is create a Media PC w/Vista
that hooks into the LCD HDTV and a LCD Monitor w/Speakers as a
workstation on a desk. Then have the ability of using either the HDTV
or the LCD Monitor with the computer, or even mirror the video on
both. Finding the right video card seems to be the issue.

Maybe just running DVI cables to both and Speaker writes to both is
the answer. Then finding an adapter to plug the DVI and Speaker wires
together and into an HDMI connector on the LCD HDTV.
 
In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Albert said:
Paul,

Thanks for the great information. I guess I will have to do more
thinking about this or maybe wait a bit for the technology hurdles to
work themselves out. Want I want to do is create a Media PC w/Vista
that hooks into the LCD HDTV and a LCD Monitor w/Speakers as a
workstation on a desk. Then have the ability of using either the HDTV
or the LCD Monitor with the computer, or even mirror the video on
both. Finding the right video card seems to be the issue.

Maybe just running DVI cables to both and Speaker writes to both is
the answer. Then finding an adapter to plug the DVI and Speaker wires
together and into an HDMI connector on the LCD HDTV.
Click to expand...

Best for that is getting a high-resolution LCD monitor, a decent video
card, then getting an HDTV card for your computer. ATI makes (or made)
nice HDTV cards; and several people make LCD monitors with high enough
resolution to support 1080p HDTV displays.

You gain far more than just one monitor that can display both that way;
such as windowed viewing, background viewing, walpaper viewing, and
TIVO-like recording; along with other really *nice* features that are
really only available on a computer-controlled TV-tuner.
 
Albert said:
Paul,

Thanks for the great information. I guess I will have to do more
thinking about this or maybe wait a bit for the technology hurdles to
work themselves out. Want I want to do is create a Media PC w/Vista
that hooks into the LCD HDTV and a LCD Monitor w/Speakers as a
workstation on a desk. Then have the ability of using either the HDTV
or the LCD Monitor with the computer, or even mirror the video on
both. Finding the right video card seems to be the issue.

Maybe just running DVI cables to both and Speaker writes to both is
the answer. Then finding an adapter to plug the DVI and Speaker wires
together and into an HDMI connector on the LCD HDTV.
Click to expand...

To me, it sounds like the video card with the SPDIF input connector
on it, and an HDMI output, might actually work better with general
computer usage. The thing is, you could have a PCI sound card, one
that has say, 5.1 analog outputs, plus an SPDIF output. The SPDIF
digital signal, could be plugged into one of those video cards that
has an SPDIF input connector. The beauty of this solution, is there is
only one audio driver installed on the computer, and now you've got
both analog to drive your normal computer speaker system, plus you
can at least send stereo across to the LCD TV.

If the video card has the full digital audio solution incorporated into it,
it seems more restrictive, in the sense that when you aren't playing
with the LCD TV, you no longer want the audio driver in the video card
to be working. This "audio over DVI" idea makes sense, if you only
have one multimedia device to drive with the computer, but if you
have multiple devices, it sounds less practical.

I think it'll be a rats nest of wires, no matter how you do it.

Paul
 
To me, it sounds like the video card with the SPDIF input connector
on it, and an HDMI output, might actually work better with general
computer usage. The thing is, you could have a PCI sound card, one
that has say, 5.1 analog outputs, plus an SPDIF output. The SPDIF
digital signal, could be plugged into one of those video cards that
has an SPDIF input connector. The beauty of this solution, is there is
only one audio driver installed on the computer, and now you've got
both analog to drive your normal computer speaker system, plus you
can at least send stereo across to the LCD TV.

If the video card has the full digital audio solution incorporated into it,
it seems more restrictive, in the sense that when you aren't playing
with the LCD TV, you no longer want the audio driver in the video card
to be working. This "audio over DVI" idea makes sense, if you only
have one multimedia device to drive with the computer, but if you
have multiple devices, it sounds less practical.
Click to expand...

The only other solution to avoiding the re-install issue that comes to
mind (at least the option was available in previous windows O/S) and
that could be to disable/enable the hardware only when required. Not
sure if Vista supports this but it could possibly work.

How does this sound (sorry for the pun):

Uninstall vid card with built in sound if already installed.
Get normal soundcard installed and working.
Disable soundcard in hardware devices (if vista has this)
Install vid card (including sound hardware)
Hopefully this will get video and sound to HDMI tv

Now you want to just have normal sound on computer so...

Disable sound hardware in vid card in hardware devices
Enable normal soundcard in hardware devices.

Don't know how possible this is and also whether it may require various
restarts during the disable/enable process. Any ideas?
 
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