Surround Audio requirements?

BillyBoy wrote on 6/16/2003, 1:42 PM
Since my current MB is acting up I guess I'm going to get a new one sooner than I had planned. With that in mind, many now come with built-in audio. A few years ago that was to be avoided.

Now things have improved a good deal, example several premium MB's use the AD1985 SoundMAX controller. While on board audio can be disabled and you can always use an external card. I was wondering if this built-in option gives all the support necessary for Vegas to encode 5-1 surround?

more details:

About SoundMAX from Analog Devices
SoundMAX Digital Audio Systems from Analog Devices are premium-performance PC audio solutions that exceed the functionality of sound cards. SoundMAX delivers unparalleled audio performance by combining an AC’97 hardware CODEC installed on the motherboard with cutting-edge audio rendering software pre-loaded in the computer, ensuring system-level compatibility and sparing end users from the installation headaches associated with add-in sound cards.

The SoundMAX-class of audio CODECs are available in both 2- and 6-channel configurations and offer variable sample rate conversion (SRC), professional quality 103 dB output with 94 dB SNR, software-configurable speaker EQ, stereo microphone input, digital S/PDIF output and analog enumeration capability. The SoundMAX feature set includes a state-of-the-art DLS2 MIDI synthesizer with the popular Yamaha DLSbyXG sound set, the award-winning Sensaura 5.1 Virtual Theater™ surround sound and support for all major game audio technologies.

Availability
SoundMAX 4 XL will begin shipping in the channel with the ASUS P4C800 motherboard that supports the Intel Canterwood chipset as of April 14, 2003.

Comments

TorS wrote on 6/16/2003, 3:13 PM
If it doesn't say "Dolby", don't count on it to be of any real use.

What you need (provided you have Vegas 4+DVD, or another Dolby encoder) are 6 channels out, or 5.1 as the current counting makes it. If you want to create very studio-like listening facilities I reckon a digital out to a complete 5.1 system would be the thing.
Tor

<Edit>
I also think it is fully acceptable to produde 5.1 surround video sound on a good stereo listening set. Because the 6 channels for the most part are not mixed, only sorted (apart from the front left/front right and perhaps the surround left/surround right) you have full control listening over a stereo pair.
mikkie wrote on 6/16/2003, 3:20 PM
I try to keep up, so was curious and did a quick look to see what's out there about this chip - don't know if my ramblings will be of any use or not.... Seems it does have a draw on the cpu, but nothing to raise alarms. Don't like drivers only from the m/board manufacturer, but would worry about this much less on an Asus then some others.

I was surprised by Analog Devices' honesty, posting a link to a review that questioned the drivers - *one version* caused poor measured response, and did relatively poorly converting 48 kHz to 44.1 in software, but this criticism wasn't repeated elsewhere. Didn't see a lot re: video editing/capture, but in 3 compatibility tests for the Matrox RT, 2 systems had a sound card installed, and the 3rd required updates, so IOW not a ton of info (but if there was, wouldn't be asking). Found it interesting that the chip itself (the physical part of things) cost about $2.

IMO, if I had a choice, all things being equal, of this chip versus the VIA used by m-audio and others, I'd lean towards the VIA as it's been proven more or less for recording and has 24 bit. IF it was on the motherboard I wanted, I'd give it a try, but also budget for a card just in case.
Noise figures seemed OK (could get quieter but not for the $). I didn't see anything about the headroom, how hot the input could be before clipping, Freeing up some PCI buss traffic might help Firewire transfer, but with 1394 on-board already with the P4C800 Deluxe, not much of an issue one way or the other. ASIO drivers would be nice, and recommended for Vegas with 5.1, but SOFO has done such a great job with their DX routines don't know that it would be necessary.
BillyBoy wrote on 6/16/2003, 5:20 PM
Thanks guys. Where I'm a little confused is as long as I have V4 and DVD-A, do I need a card/chip that support Dolby or will anything that outputs 5 or 6 channels do? Even the IWill MB I'm using now has an little extra card you can plug in for 6 channel, was too lazy to ever bother hooking it up so don't know.

The other thing is someone awhile back posted a VEG that had surround sound or somebody sent me one, forget which and I was surprised how Vegas changes the track header showing the surround speakers even without me having any hardware support for surround installed.
Baylo wrote on 6/16/2003, 8:02 PM
You need a card or m/b chipset that will provide 6 discreet channels if you want to monitor the audio from Vegas. Vegas will use MS / DirectX drivers to send uncompressed sound to the selected channels, so it is not a requirement to have AC-3 built in. You'll only need that if you try to play back AC-3 content from DVD (or maybe preview in DVD-A?)

To be honest, I have SoundMAX on my Asus board (P4PE) and have never used it. I have a Delta 44 card hooked up to half-decent stereo monitors. All six channels are routed to those two speakers. I don't do anything fancy in surround - just pan background music between the front and back speakers, dialog in the center speaker, and let the receiver's bass management system take of sending stuff to the sub. The LFE channel is an EFFECTs channel, after all, and not really a channel for mixing music.

Once I have a rough mix sorted out, I'll render 5 minutes or so and burn to a DVD+RW so that I can play it back on my home theater system and make sure I'm on the right track.

Works OK so far, but I'd love to have another 4 speakers hooked up to the PC to do this properly...

Mark