For a long time I've wanted a soundcard with digital inputs that can accept an incoming Dolby Digital (AC3) signal, decode it, and play it through my computer speakers. This would be useful for things like gaming consoles, since I don't have a receiver/home theater I use my PC and my monitor (I run the console's audio into my pc's soundcard).
The problem is almost no soundcards have digital inputs and the ones that do can only accept stereo audio from the digital ins. There are one or two cards that support Dolby Digital on the digital inputs, but these are the ridiculously expensive cards (typically in the hundreds of USD range).
Given that I don't want to buy a retardedly expensive soundcard and that the onboard Intel HD audio on my motherboard is fine with the exception that it has no digital inputs, I decided to do some research and I discovered the TI PCM2906.
This chip seems to have everything I want, existing drivers (even for Vista!), and SPDIF in. My idea is that, using this chip and a simple PCB, I can take the digital audio it receives and pass it into the AC3Filter software which can decode AC3 signals (I'm a programmer so writing a bit of code to connect the directshow filters doesn't worry me).
My question however, is if I were to send an AC3 encoded audio signal into this chip over SPDIF, what would it do with it? Would it pass the signal un-mangled up to the software? In the past I did have a soundcard with an spdif input, however anything that wasn't stereo PCM was simply ignored. So I'm worried this chip might do the same....
I appreciate any feedback on my idea.
The problem is almost no soundcards have digital inputs and the ones that do can only accept stereo audio from the digital ins. There are one or two cards that support Dolby Digital on the digital inputs, but these are the ridiculously expensive cards (typically in the hundreds of USD range).
Given that I don't want to buy a retardedly expensive soundcard and that the onboard Intel HD audio on my motherboard is fine with the exception that it has no digital inputs, I decided to do some research and I discovered the TI PCM2906.
This chip seems to have everything I want, existing drivers (even for Vista!), and SPDIF in. My idea is that, using this chip and a simple PCB, I can take the digital audio it receives and pass it into the AC3Filter software which can decode AC3 signals (I'm a programmer so writing a bit of code to connect the directshow filters doesn't worry me).
My question however, is if I were to send an AC3 encoded audio signal into this chip over SPDIF, what would it do with it? Would it pass the signal un-mangled up to the software? In the past I did have a soundcard with an spdif input, however anything that wasn't stereo PCM was simply ignored. So I'm worried this chip might do the same....
I appreciate any feedback on my idea.