Dolby digital live: pretty fucking cool.

T

Tahnit

Veteran XV
So i was browsing creatives site looking for new drivers for my x-fi when i saw a page about dolby digital live. It said it converted standard audio into dolby digital output. I have a logitech z5500 and an xfi extreme gamer so i said what the hell and bought it (it was only 4 bucks).

The difference is pretty dramatic. Audio is a lot crisper and 3d positional audio in games is much much better. Everything has the crisp sound that dolby digital movies have.

It works on pretty much every x-fi card and its very cheap. If you have an x-fi check it out. Worth the money imo.

Also makes fallout3 sound fucking incredible.

Creative Labs
 
The only way this could possibly have improved anything for you is if you didn't have all of your speakers hooked up in the first place. Otherwise the audio quality would be just as good (if not better due to no compression and better DACs) coming from the X-Fi's analog out.
 
the only practical purpose of having dolby digital live being output from your sound card is so that you can output it to a dolby digital receiver that doesn't have multiple inputs for audio.

if your system was connected properly to the z5500 using the 3 outputs from your sound card, you should notice NO difference. this will NOT improve clarity (unless your cables suck dick). this will NOT make things sound crisper (again, unless your cables suck dick).

or maybe your old sound card just (or the onboard audio) sucked dick.
 
ok there are some audio nubs on this forum. First of all analog sounds horrible, even with the right cables. It is an old audio technology and is outdated. Digital optical cables sound much much better then standard 3 port cables. Second if you connect a digital optical cable to the soundcard and home theater system you only get dolby digital in movies, and thats only if the player supports digital. (Media center works great).

Games however only output in stereo even if the game says it has dolby digital support.

Dolby digital live is a real time encoding software that converts standard audio into a dolby digital format. This allows the use of dolby digital sound in games.

You can say i shouldn't notice a difference but i do. Audio clerity and position is much better then with the analog cables.

say what you want but it made a difference for me.
 
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Tahnit said:
ok there are some audio nubs on this forum. First of all analog sounds horrible, even with the right cables. It is an old audio technology and is outdated.
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no, it isn't. how do you think audio gets from a surround system's receiver to its speakers? you really have no idea what you're talking about. from your sound card to your z5500 is such a short length of cable that (unless your cables are fucked) you won't notice the difference using the 3 outputs you used to have versus the digital output.

Second if you connect a digital optical cable to the soundcard and home theater system you only get dolby digital in movies, and thats only if the player supports digital. (Media center works great).

Dolby digital live is a real time encoding software that converts standard audio into a dolby digital format. This allows the use of dolby digital sound in games.
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Gee, really? My post certainly gave no hint of realizing this... except the part where I said:

iNVAR said:
the only practical purpose of having dolby digital live being output from your sound card is so that you can output it to a dolby digital receiver that doesn't have multiple inputs for audio.
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your z5500 already has multichannel inputs for surround. therefore, you using the digital connection with your computer is pointless.

You can say i shouldn't notice a difference but i do. Audio clerity and position is much better then with the analog cables.

say what you want but it made a difference for me.
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that's because you probably have the intellect of a 6 year old. jedi mind tricks actually work on you i guess... or in this case, you're just deluding yourself.

like i said, taking into account what i said, you won't notice a difference.

oh, and p.s. :lol: @ using media center.
 
Yes, that's right, analog sucks. That's why your speakers have a digitial connection to the receiver, and the entire process of generating the soundwave is an entirely digital process. Oh wait, it's not.

DD is a lossy audio compression codec. Don't get me wrong, it's quite good for what it was designed for (5.1 sound in limited space for movies and HDTV) but as it's lossy you only want to use it when you need to. All you're doing with DDL is encoding the discrete 5.1 audio channels your card is ready to output in to a lossy DD stream, which your receiver is then decoding and pushing back out. You lose twice here; not only do you lose quality on the DD stream, but you lose some more because the DACs on that specific speaker set aren't even as good as those on the X-Fi.

You are hearing the exact same thing, only worse. There is no difference with 3D positioning, that is being done by the X-Fi processor before finally rendering everything as 5.1 discrete streams. At some point this shit is all being converted back to analog anyhow, so that your speakers can output the sound.

Moron.
 
ViRGE said:
Yes, that's right, analog sucks. That's why your speakers have a digitial connection to the receiver, and the entire process of generating the soundwave is an entirely digital process. Oh wait, it's not.

DD is a lossy audio compression codec. Don't get me wrong, it's quite good for what it was designed for (5.1 sound in limited space for movies and HDTV) but as it's lossy you only want to use it when you need to. All you're doing with DDL is encoding the discrete 5.1 audio channels your card is ready to output in to a lossy DD stream, which your receiver is then decoding and pushing back out. You lose twice here; not only do you lose quality on the DD stream, but you lose some more because the DACs on that specific speaker set aren't even as good as those on the X-Fi.

You are hearing the exact same thing, only worse. There is no difference with 3D positioning, that is being done by the X-Fi processor before finally rendering everything as 5.1 discrete streams. At some point this shit is all being converted back to analog anyhow, so that your speakers can output the sound.

Moron.
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All i know is that it sounds better to me. Maybe my cables were shitty who knows. But doing tests with it on and off i can CLEARLY hear a difference. Otherwise why would creative offer it in the first place if it does not help at all?

Oh well it was only 4 bucks if it is indeed not doing anything.
 
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Tahnit said:
Otherwise why would creative offer it in the first place if it does not help at all.
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Because some people have receivers that can't accept analog (or they just really, really, really want to use a single cable), as mentioned earlier. The difference really is all in your head.
 
ViRGE said:
Because some people have receivers that can't accept analog (or they just really, really, really want to use a single cable), as mentioned earlier. The difference really is all in your head.
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Well a single cable does clear up the clutter on my desk. Oh well maybe you are right. Ill do some more testing.

ok another question. Should i use dolby digital/DTS if a movie supports it? Would it sound better then standard analog audio?
 
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Tahnit said:
Well a single cable does clear up the clutter on my desk. Oh well maybe you are right. Ill do some more testing.

ok another question. Should i use dolby digital/DTS if a movie supports it? Would it sound better then standard analog audio?
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It shouldn't make any significant difference. The DACs on the X-Fi are a smidgen better, but I doubt you would be able to tell.
 
Tahnit said:
ok there are some audio nubs on this forum. First of all analog sounds horrible, even with the right cables. It is an old audio technology and is outdated. Digital optical cables sound much much better then standard 3 port cables. Second if you connect a digital optical cable to the soundcard and home theater system you only get dolby digital in movies, and thats only if the player supports digital. (Media center works great).

Games however only output in stereo even if the game says it has dolby digital support.

Dolby digital live is a real time encoding software that converts standard audio into a dolby digital format. This allows the use of dolby digital sound in games.

You can say i shouldn't notice a difference but i do. Audio clerity and position is much better then with the analog cables.

say what you want but it made a difference for me.
Click to expand...

:rofl:

omg.
 
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