An HTPC blu-ray drive upgrade would be the most cost-effective. Unfortunately, there is no PC hardware capable of outputting 7.1 channel uncompressed audio over HDMI. The best you can do is 5.1 over optical/coax (toslink/SPDIF). There are a few video cards that output audio over HDMI, but is identical to the 5.1 SPDIF output. I'm waiting for PC hardware that can handle all the format has to offer.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carlton Bale @ Feb 20th 2008 4:47PM
An HTPC blu-ray drive upgrade would be the most cost-effective. Unfortunately, there is no PC hardware capable of outputting 7.1 channel uncompressed audio over HDMI. The best you can do is 5.1 over optical/coax (toslink/SPDIF). There are a few video cards that output audio over HDMI, but is identical to the 5.1 SPDIF output. I'm waiting for PC hardware that can handle all the format has to offer.