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I am having problems with DTS Interactive on my ACL889a via the onlboard gigabyte chipset. I have the system connected via SPDIF to a relatively high End Yamaha RX-757 Receiver, and apart from DTS interactive, everything else works great.
I need this to work, as I have a lot of content in compressed formats (MKV etc, with 5.1 MP3 Channels for Audio, so DTS interative is the only way to digitally get 6 channels to my reciever from these files).
FYI I am running Vista Ultimate SP1, which has jus been freshly installed. Prior to the re-install of vista, DTS interactive was working nicely.
When I play any music file, even the most basic 2 channel wav/mp3 or all the way up to 5.1 channel encoded audio & video, DTS sort of drops in and out. To be more specific, on my Yamaha receiver, when it is getting a DTS stream, it Shows DTS on the LCD display, and you can clearly see 6 channels active on the LCD. You can hear every few seconds popping sounds, and the DTS stream drops for a fraction of a second.. then reconnects.... so the sound is broken up.. with regular pops and crackle out of the speakers.. but it seems that the DTS feed to the receiver is the problem, more specifically the re-encoding done by the Realtek DTS Interactive feature.
To rule out the receiver and hardware, I have some movies (MKV format), that are encoded with a DTS 1536K 5.1 audio stream. If I turn off DTS Interactive, and (I use FFDSHOW), set it to pass DTS to spdif, then DTS works great, the stream is pure and no sound errors. The same is when I play a DVD with DTS via Power DVD, I have no problems, so I dont think the fault is anything on the system, other than the DTS Interactive feature. I have tried many drivers version.. does anyone have any suggestions why DTS interactive is not working correctly?
I have tried the latest drivers on the realtek website, 2.27, and also the latest drivers on gigabyte website (slightly older), I have even tried using R.180 drivers over 1 year old, but all cause the same problem.
I am at a loss as to what else I can try?
The worst thing of all is that this was working before I re-installed Vista from Scratch... but I also remember when I setup this originally over a year ago.. I had this same problem.. which seemed to mysteriously sort itself out..
Sorry but I don't really have a solution for you but have made an interesting observation. My mobo (ga-e7aum-ds2h) uses the same realtek chip and drivers but mine doesn't support dts connect. Mine has dolby digital live support. The realtek site states that these are optional and I always thought it was driver/software that enabled the features, obvioulsy not.
I would try uninstalling/deleting all drivers in device manager and then reinstall using the drivers on the mobo disc, assuming you haven't already tried this.
Before you do this make sure you set vista to not automatically install drivers on restart so that once all driver files on your hdd have been deleted vista wont go looking on the web for the drivers and install them without your consent.
To do this select "system" in control panel then go to "system protection", then click the 'hardware" tab. Click "Windows update driver settings" reset it to "Ask me each time...." or "Never check..." ok then exit.
Right click on the realtek audio device in device manager go to the drivers tab and select uninstall, from memory there is check box which needs to be ticked to delete the driver. You will probably need to do a restart after each uninstall/delete.
On each restart vista will find the previous driver installed on your hdd and will install it. If you have done several driver updates you may need to uninstall/delete and restart several times to delete all of the installed driver files.
Once they have all been deleted and you do the last restart reinstall off the mobo disk.
Sorry for the novel but I had to do this recently for my tuner and it had about 6 drivers on the hdd and I had to delete all of them and it took me a while to work out what was going on.
I have a gigabyte mobo that has this DTS support but I have found that I am better of sending the audio to my pc over optical via 2 channel 48hz and letting my receiver do the decoding to something like Pro Logic II Movie or just plain old Pro Logic. I found that the DTS interactive was pretty poor at doing a 5 channel matrix and since I had a decent receiver that has its own decoders I just use them.
Thanks Mox.. but if I do as you suggest you lose a lot of detail in the surround sound, when something moves left to right etc, I have tried this and there is a very noticable drop in quality when watching movies done with proper 5.1 channels.. most blockbusters etc.
will try changing the drivers.. wasnt aware of the system protection feature.
You should be able to setup your receiver so that when it get a 5.1 source either DD or DTS that it switches over from prologic and will instead use the DD and DTS decoder in the amp. For example -
- I have mine setup to do 2 channel 48hz in the Realtek control panel
- I also have DTS and DD enabled in the vista control panel
- Then I have my amp setup so if its just 2 channels coming over optical it does Pro Logic
- If it gets a 5 channel DD or DTS the amp decodes teh 5.1 channel sound and the amp lights up with either DD or DTS 5.1
Hi Mox .. sorry that is how I have it setup atm.. which is fine for anything with DTS or DD, it gets the proper 5.1.. However I have a lot of content which has been encoded with 5.1ch MP3 as the audio stream. So this is why I need the DTS interactive to work.
The annoying thing atm is that the sound is perfect with DTS or DD streams, but when i use DTS interactive.. the stream keeps intermittently dropping, (about once every 5-10 seconds), so you either hear a pause or a crackle or pop etc.. super annoying.. and when this happens the LCD on the Yamaha receiver drops displaying DTS.. somehow when DTS interactive runs it sending some Junk or something the tuner cant understand for a few fractions of a second..
any type of audio I play via any player causes the same effect when DTS interactive is on.. so its appears the error is at the hardware or driver level.
Worst still is I know it was working before the vista re-install so hardware seems unlikely..
I would try the drivers then if it was working before a reinstall. Go back to the drivers you had installed when it was working and if that doesn't work try the latest release. I can see what you mean about needing dts interactive since you have movies encoded with mp3 audio.
One other thing came to me today and I remembered that my amp also had a DTS interactive equivalent maybe you're s has the same thing.
I have now tried 4 different versions of the drivers, 3 from realtek, from over a year old, to the latest versions. I still get the exact same errors with DTS interactive. I have confirmed via device manager that they have been installed etc and not replacaed by system protection..
I am literally at a loss as to what else I can do...
On my AMP, i have my media center PC hooked up to the DVD spdif input. On the AMP for the input mode for that source, there are 3 options.. analogu, auto and DTS. I have had it on auto, which is perfect, becasue that way it picks up DTS automatically if I play an mp3 etc, but plenty of other content is in Dolby Digital.. (HD TV etc), and it will switch to this automatically.. but when the sound clicks or stutters or pops (basicaly just random noise hits the speakers for about half a second every 5 or 10 seconds, when this happens, the DTS logo drops (ie the AMP in auto mode detects no DTS stream), then a second later switches back to DTS.
I have tried setting the AMP input to DTS. This locks the AMP in DTS only mode for that input.. this stops the mode changing on the amp (ie the LCD does flick back to auto when the sound breaks up), but still.. you get clear pops/crackles and pauses in the sound.. and this sucks because then the DD stuff doesnt work.
I have tried all sorts of music files to rule out codecs and players.. it does this playing a .wav file in wmp all the way through to playing mp4 5.1ch mkv files.. no difference.
I noticed today, on closer inspection.. that even when I play music files (ie with the soundcard just set as 2ch PCM (no DTS interactive), i get a recurring, intermittent (very faint mind you) crackle/pop in the sound.. its almost like static, similar to in an analogue setup when u have a bad connection.. except this is all digital, on a high end amp and high end speakers.. so it stands out like dogs balls..
I am going to go one step back, and see if I just plug headphones directly into the PC, (bypasing the SPDIF), if I get the same crackle..
The bit that is weird though, is that if I play a file that has an encoded DTS or DD stream (such as MP4 or MKV or HDTV), then the sound is perfect.. so that makes me pretty certain its not my receiver that has a fault.. but something on the media center side..
I have now tried multiple physical optical inputs on the receiver, and 2 different optical cables.. all they both do the same.. have tried 4 sets of drivers..
Have just tried plugging headphones directly into the computer to bypass the optical connection & receiver. Obviously cant test DTS interactive, but I am still detecting a little bit of crackle & pop in the sound. Its faint enough that probably your average listener wouldnt detect it.. but it is definetly there.. its intermittent (ie not a part of the mp3 or wav file I am playing... as it occurs at different parts of the song if I replay it).
I am wondering if I am having some sort of physical fault on the onbard ALC889a sound card... these pops/crackles in the headphones happen about the same frequency as the dropping in/out of the DTS interactive stream..
Does anyone know of any cheap PCI sound card that can do DTS interactive ? all the ones I have found so far are $200 plus.. cost as much as my motherboard....
