I want to build a new system for movies, so being able to play a DVD in DTS or Dolby Digital is a must :) My only question is that do I have to buy a sound card that says it can play DTS or Dolby Digital? I'm going to be hooking my sound card up to my receiver via an optical cable. My receiver says it's DTS and Dolby Digital ready, so I figured my sound card doesn't need to have it. I'm so confused :( Thanks for reading! Incarn

You'll want a sound card that can do Dolby Digital Live and/or DTS Connect. DDL and DTS-C both encode regular PC audio into a Dolby Digital or DTS bitstream, then send it out the light tube to your receiver. DTS-C is preferable, as it encodes and streams DTS at 1536 Kbps. DDL, in comparison, only encodes and streams Dolby Digital audio at 640Kbps. If you have a decent audio setup, you will hear a difference between the two formats. All Creative X-Fi and Auzentech cards support DDL and DTS-C. I *think* that the Asus Xonar line of cards also support the technology. Many motherboards aimed at the HTPC market have integrated audio that can do DDL. Socket 939³ Dual-core Opteron 185 @ 3.2GHz 2x 8800GTS in SLI 4GB CL2 PC3200 Blu-ray burner X-Fi Ti Pro PCI-E Antec P182 Samsung 24" LCD Vista 64

Darn, so it looks like I'm going to have to spend a lot of money after all. Thanks for the information. You helped out a ton!!! Incarn

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