I just found this thread. How crazy is this?

On my old system I routed the optical audio to the amplifier - and I also connected its 3.5mm line out jack to the TV directly. I normally listen through the amp (nice big speakers!) but sometimes it's more convenient to use the TV speakers (late at night for instance).

I can't believe some of you guys are having to resort to buying hardware to do this. There should be a simple software fix. Presumably this problem has been caused by Vista's design - if it's for copy protection, or just because they remodelled the whole Windows audio system I don't know. But whatever, it's a PITA. I certainly don't think it's a hardware limitation. Hopefully some resourceful person will knock up a software solution that provides audio passthrough - something a bit like volumetracker that I used on the old machine to control the SPDIF levels.

Having had a bit of a play it does seem that Vista can direct two different sets of audio to two different outputs. I don't know how I've done it but with both connectors plugged in, I am now getting recorded TV audio over the SPDIF, and Vista interface sounds (clicks etc) over the television speakers. Very odd - quite why anybody would ever want that arrangement I don't know.

I did think that maybe Vista can't mix two differently-sourced bits of audio, but by unplugging the 3.5mm line out jack all interface FX again come through the SPDIF and quite clearly mix with recorded TV audio.

same here.

want to switch between my wireless headphones when watching movies (connected to spdif) when kids in bed and analog speakers for kids and wife to listen when i am at work. if i forget to do the exact sequence (via control panel) i get a phone at work explaining my wife how to change the settings -> WAF = 0

i am really wondering about the whole vista hype. it is supposed to be the living room multimedia experience. so far i only experienced hardcore-teckie-guy-are-even-not-able-to-comprehend-everything. hello mr. gates what is your product vision?!?!

Has anyone figured this out yet?  This is way frustrating!  Maybe some coder on this board can get something going!  I'd think one would make a lot of $$$ getting a program to do such a task.

 

I'd pay for it....since MS won't put it in their OS  :-/

It's crazy isn't it.

You would think there would be a possible hack to get this working, as I have had sound coming from both outputs at the same time in vista.

I've got a realtek onboard sound chip, if I have the device set to digital out and then play a tune in media player it comes out of my digital outputs.

While that's playing, if I change the sound to analogue and apply that, the media player tune keeps playing out of the digital output, but the buttons to test your speaker setup play through the analogue output at the same time.

The problem is not that the hardware will not play audio on both output devices at the same time. The problem is thar VMC/ WMP is hardcoded to only output sound to the default audio device. I my tests show that is you change the default playback device you have to restart VMC to output to the new default,

I know the Windows audio team has this on their long feature request list - but as allways MS does say if/when feature requests will be implemented.

It maybe possible to write a new device driver or Directx filter that can act as Windows default playback device and then split the audio stream to two other devices.

So if you're a serious low leven windows developer thats a spare time project for you :-)

ildoc

ildocteur:

The problem is not that the hardware will not play audio on both output devices at the same time. The problem is thar VMC/ WMP is hardcoded to only output sound to the default audio device. I my tests show that is you change the default playback device you have to restart VMC to output to the new default,

I know the Windows audio team has this on their long feature request list - but as allways MS does say if/when feature requests will be implemented.

It maybe possible to write a new device driver or Directx filter that can act as Windows default playback device and then split the audio stream to two other devices.

So if you're a serious low leven windows developer thats a spare time project for you :-)

ildoc

I think people are having separate problems.  Your problem is the default playback device.  The title of this thread is actually "Simultaneous SPDIF and Analog audio output."

Like I've said, I have no problem playing back analog 2-channel audio to both audio outputs (Music, Analog TV, etc.).  The problem is DVD and HD sources which are 6-channel audio.  In this case, if you set media center up for SPDIF passthrough, you get no sound through the analog jack.  Or even if you do get sound, it is the 2 front channels, which is worthless since most of the dialog comes through the center channel.  What I need is for Windows to do SPDIF passthrough to my receiver and also downmix that to 2-channel audio to pass to my TV.

This is dumb since my 6 year old DVD player will do DD5.1 SPDIF output to my receiver and 2-channel analog output to my TV at the same time.  Windows just can't do it.

I actually think the problem is the same.

On my machine (Realtek HD audio based) analog output and SPDIF is two different Playback devices. So no matter what I do VMC will only output to one of them "the default". I can change the default to switch output but Windows will only allow one default..

ildoc

ildoc, I see your point.

aeroguy:

ildoc, I see your point.

Nonetheless this sux.  When I get back from D.C. in a couple of weeks, I will break down and buy the device that I mentioned earlier in the thread, hopefully it will work because I am tired of waiting on a software fix. :(

I have enjoyed the brainstorm sessions, but I've broken down and setup a second surround receiver. It is only because I already had it. The space it takes up when I'm only using it to decode to analog stereo is very disappointing; however, not nearly as disappointing as the fact that it worked fine in MCE2005.

I'll be keeping an eye on everyone elses progress. Good luck!

fortunately my philips wireless headphone base stations can forward digital (coax and optical) as well audio. right now i am using coax spdif out from my soundcard to the philips station (or any a/v receiver) and then do the splitting to audio, headphones, digital etc. from there.

it is crazy isn't it to use another external to do considering having a brand new 2007 operating system. oh boy! ms, nvidia they all suck!

Just a quick thought....

Wouldn't it help to split the SPDIF output
1) to the receiver (or graphic card's SPDIF-in to pass through to HDMI, if available), and
2) to a secondary audio card's SPDIF-in?

The secondary audio card could just play what it "hears" on the SPDIF input back to analog output, if set up correctly ("monitor", or "what you hear" is available on Audigy cards), and probably could down-mix multichannel digital signal to 2-channel analog if needed.

Am I right?

The only part where I'm unsure (though this has been mentioned here many times) is whether it is possible to split the digital signal using an "Y" cable without signal degradation. Can anyone comment on this?

Cheers,
Filip

Here is the file you need to get simultaneous dual analog and digital output from a single card if you are using a Realtek-based sound card/chipset with Vista. 

Copy the attached file (rtkhdaud.dat) to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers and then reboot system. It will open the "Analog and Digital output at same time function" in Vista system. 

It worked for me.  After copying the file and rebooting, I had to go into my soundcard's properties tab and update the driver to the new realtek driver.

http://neosmart.net/downloads/guides/Vista_Sound/rtkhdaud.zip

nilknarf:

Here is the file you need to get simultaneous dual analog and digital output from a single card if you are using a Realtek-based sound card/chipset with Vista. 

Copy the attached file (rtkhdaud.dat) to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers and then reboot system. It will open the "Analog and Digital output at same time function" in Vista system. 

It worked for me.  After copying the file and rebooting, I had to go into my soundcard's properties tab and update the driver to the new realtek driver.

http://neosmart.net/downloads/guides/Vista_Sound/rtkhdaud.zip

Did you make this?  Is this just to enable analog and digital out at the same time, or does it also make Vista output digital SPDIF passthrough and and at the same time downmix DD5.1 sources to 2-channel for the analog output?  I'm running XP MCE 2005 and I can output both for analog, but not if it's a DD5.1 source (or DTS obviously).