Audio over DVI?

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farmkid

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Apr 7, 2006
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I'm thinking of building a basic HTPC to plug into my TV and I'm looking for the right motherboard. Because of parts I already have and want to use, I'm somewhat limited in what I can buy. I've found a motherboard that is perfect for what I need (ECS HDC-I2; AMD E350, Hudson F1 chipset) except that it only has DVI and not HDMI. The manufacturer says that HDMI is optional, but I can't find any retailers selling the HDMI version. So my question is, if I use a DVI-HDMI adapter, will the audio signal be transmitted as well, or only video? I know devices can output HDMI (including audio) over DVI, but how common is that?
 
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You will only get video with a DVI cable that's why the Ltters DVI stand for Digital Video Interface and HDMI stands for High Definition Media Interface. If your motherboard has a Toslink port and your tv/reciever has one you can have HD sound transmitted alongside the DVI cable. The optical cable gives a much better sound quality.
 
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I realize I will only get video over a DVI cable (and yes, I know what DVI stands for, thank you), but I was asking specifically about using an adapter. Some ATI video cards output audio through the DVI interface which can be accessed using a DVI to HDMI adapter. What I haven't been able to learn, however, is how common that is. Will every ATI/AMD card that supports audio do it, or only some? Will AMD chipsets that normally output audio through HDMI do the same?

alvine, thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately, my TV doesn't have an analog audio input associated with the HDMI input. If I'm using HDMI, the audio has to come through the HDMI cable. Also, when you say "only video signal", are you saying you know for sure that the Hudson D1 chipset, or this motherboard in particular, can't send an audio signal over the DVI connector?
 
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If you are buying new, why bother trying to make something more complicated than it is. Buy a motherboard with HDMI and be done with it. There are plenty of micro/mini fm1 boards that have HDMI and this way you don't have to deal with all the hassel of getting it working. Worst case scenario your going to have to send it back/sell it and buy an HDMI one anyway.
 
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Well the reason why is that I already have a PSU and TV tuner card I want to use that won't allow me to use many of the boards currently available. My tuner card is PCI, so I need a board with a PCI slot. The PSU I have laying around that I want to use only has a 20+4 pin main connector, and every micro ATX and ATX board out there requires at least a 24 pin main connector plus another 4-, 6-, or 8-pin power connector. The PSU I have will only work with ITX boards because they are the only ones without the extra connectors, and the board mentioned above is the only one I can find with a PCI slot and sufficient hardware HD decoding capabilities. (It's not going in a case, so form factor doesn't really matter.) The money I have for this is very limited, and there just isn't money in the budget for a new tuner card. I might be able to buy a new PSU, but that would make it a lot harder to justify the expense of the whole project. If I can't use what I already have, the project probably won't happen at all.
 
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First, the ECS HDC-I2 only has video out DVI and D-Sub (VGA). So you have (4) choices:
1. Most TV's have a 'PC' in D-Sub (VGA) and a 3mm stereo audio inputs; look carefully.
2. Receiver with DVI/D-Sub and audio, then HDMI to the TV
3. Converter e.g. Biostar CABLE2HDMI
4. Exchange the ESC for another Mini ITX MOBO/CPU combo.
 
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Actually. DVI to HDMI converters can and do do audio over the HDMI, even though it's converted from the DVI, but only the more recent graphics cards do it. I had a GTS 240 with DVI to HDMI connector amd got audio over the HDMI cable, and I know the ATI cards do the same with an ATI adapter. This is from personal experience, not I read it somewhere.
 
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I know that ATI cards from 3xxx and up do that, do you know whether their IGPs on the motherboard (780G, 880G, Hudson, etc.) do that as well?
 
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Yeah, I'm thinking I'll have to figure something else out. Unless someone can confirm that the AMD IGPs output audio over the DVI interface like their cousins on discrete cards do, I don't think I'll want to take the risk.
 
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Yes, the ECS board isn't my first choice, but it's the ONLY one that will allow me to use all the hardware I currently have. Swapping it for anything else will require me to buy either a new PSU or TV tuner card as well. Not sure that fits the budget, so I'll probably just wait a while before doing anything until I can afford to replace one or the other.
 
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I'm unsure if the ECS board works this way as well, but I'm using a similar E350 board from ASRock and I get audio over the DVI connection to a receiver using a DVI to HDMI cable.

My HTPC goes to my PC receiver via DVI as well as my home theater receiver via HDMI. I can only use one or the other at a time for audio though, and I'm unsure if you need a board with HDMI on it already to support the audio over DVI.

I believe the audio processor to do this has been built into any ATI/AMD video processor for a while now, but I am unsure if ECS would have had to do something on their end to enable it.

 
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