Enable Dolby Digital? Z77 Extreme 4-M (ALC898)

[Luieburger]

I have a Realtek ALC898 on my motherboard. The ALC898 supports Dolby Digital Live encoding. However, I can't figure out how to do this on my board. I know some cards require people to pay a small premium to use Dolby Digital Live, is that the case for the Z77 Extreme 4-M? How do I go about enabling Dolby Digital on my ALC898?

Thanks,
Luieburger

[Luieburger]

Oh yea... what about Dolby Headphone support? I'd rather not get an amp for that.

[profJim]

From ASRock > Products > Z77 Extreme4-M, have you downloaded and installed THX TruStudio ver:1.00.01?

[Luieburger]

Yes I did. It doesn't seem to do anything. I still only get Dolby Pro Logic on my receiver. It doesn't seem to affect my other outputs either.

Is it supposed to encode Dolby Digital? Am I missing something?

[AbsoluteJoe]

Even though the ALC898 hardware supports Dolby Digital, you still need a licensed Dolby Digital software package to actually use it. Dolby Digital Live is one option to enable Windows to encode and/or stream 5.1/7.1 Dolby Digital to a Dolby Digital capable receiver. The bundled free THX software only supports 2 channels unless upgraded (~$5). Unfortunately not all motherboards with Dolby Digital capable hardware bundle the Dolby Digital Live software or Dolby licensed Windows media players or plugins. Many 3rd party media players are licensed to bitstream Dolby Digital over SPDIF or HDMI but they do not add Dolby Digital support directly to Windows.

You can search for shareware/freeware codec packages and software that allow Windows to output compressed multichannel 5.1/7.1 over SPDIF and truly lossless LPCM over HDMI.

NOTE: Windows 7 and up
------------------------
The Realtek digital output drivers supplied with Windows 7 natively support Dolby Digital and DTS, so you shouldn't need to install the ASROCK realtek drivers.
Make sure that the settings for the Playback Devices, Digital Output Properties, Supported Formats, have the DD and DTS options checked, along with the
sample rates supported by your receiver.

[Luieburger]

You can search for shareware/freeware codec packages and software that allow Windows to output compressed multichannel 5.1/7.1 over SPDIF and truly lossless LPCM over HDMI.

Do most receivers decode LPCM? I'm sending out audio over TOSLINK and don't have HDMI, so 5.1 LPCM is not an option for me. My receiver doesn't support it either from what I can tell.

Is there any way for me to buy a personal license from Dolby so that I can run Dolby Digital Live on my PC? I saw something similar to this, but only for X-Fi cards. Creative Labs

[AbsoluteJoe]

The SPDIF toslink/coax DD is limited to a max of 5.1 @ 48000.

Check out the free AC3 filter codec at ac3filter.net. Its a bit cumbersome to setup, but t will allow WMP to play 5.1 material over a Dolby Digital coax/toslink connection.
Just remember that Dolby Digital AC3 encoding is restricted to 5.1 @ 48000 max over SPDIF, higher rates will fall back into Prologic mode.

I just successfully tested using the AC3 filter on my new X79 Extreme4-M, along with some FLAC support plugins, to play 5.1 flac files via WMP to my Sony receiver in DD.

To play Dolby Digital encoded BluRay content, I'm using the Cyberlink PowerDVD10 OEM that came bundled with my Pioneer BluRay player.

But the Realtek ALC898 should be able to decode DD and send it to the analog outputs. Make sure to configure the Playback device speaker configuration for 5.1.