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I think I've found confirmation that the Radeon HD 3850/3870 will pass bitstream HD audio at the very least with no additional cabling. (if bitstream is the non-decoded version). Link

[RAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT!!!]
From the link:
To the best of my knowlege, neither the 2400 or 2600 were able to do hardware decoding of VC1 or H.264 so this confuses me. In my months of reading reviews, spec sheets etc. there is nothing out there, that I have found, that supports this. Were these not bases on the 690g chipset??


English is a grand language it allows you as much or as little specificity as you desire. It is sometimes hard to dedcide if a lack of specificity is by design or deliberate.

Saying you can "connect HDMI towards your tv", by the way, gramatically tells you you don't need to connect the TV/diplay end to anything. Just point it in that general direction and you will get sound from your display. "through a TrueHD/Dolby HD receiver" means you can pass SOMETHING through a TrueHD/ Dolby HD (note the lack of MA) receiver, but tells us absolutely nothing about what. The statements however IMPLY but the use of TrueHD/DolbyHD that they MAY pass the new HD audio streams.

If the author had been able/willing to be a little more concise he could have simply told us that this card is able to pass ONLY 16-bit PCM Stereo sound or AC3 5.1 compressed multi-channel audiostreams as Dolby Digital and DTS, left all the GOBLDYGOOK out and moved on to the primary topic of the review: video performance.

So, we are back to where we were a few posts back by looking directly at the ATI specs. It has audio capability built in and it passes some Audio, though not the HD stuff we sooooooo much desire it to.

[/RAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT!!!]

I feel better now...

or alternatively

There, now I am ready to go in for 4 hours of Saturday production support. "What to you mean you dropped the %*@***!! $600 scanner again!!! No, you can't have another one. Now write it all out by hand and enter it into the database later"

Need coffee...

OK, ok... I don't know if anything will pass it, then. Those are supposed to be the best ones on the market. The 2400 and 2600 were video cards, so definitely not based on the 690g chipset, which had a video chip based on earlier video cards. The 2400 and 2600 were based on the 2900, but that did not have the HD stuff built in for some unknown reason.

>>To the best of my knowlege, neither the 2400 or 2600 were able to do hardware decoding of VC1 or H.264 so this confuses me. In my months of reading reviews, spec sheets etc. there is nothing out there, that I have found, that supports this. Were these not bases on the 690g chipset??

The HD2400, 2600, 34xx, 36xx and 38xx (RV610, RV630, RV620, RV635 and RV670 respectively) all have the UVD block which does hardware decoding of VC1 and H.264. The HD2900 (ie the R600) was the only HD2xxx part which did not have the UVD block.

UVD is primarily about power saving and reducing CPU load for laptop-type configurations -- plugging in any of the high end GPUs (ours or the other guys) is like twisting the +12V and ground wires together anyways, so saving a bit of power on video playback just didn't justify making the die any bigger.

The 690 is one generation older -- it has most of the HD2xxx display controller logic but no UVD and a 3D engine from the X700 family. If you want a comparable IGP part to the HD2xxx/HD3xxx parts you need to compare with the new 780, not the 690.

I'm pretty sure there is some "AVIVO" blurb which talks about both UVD and the proprietary video processing stuff on the ATI section of amd.com -- I can try to dig it up if you like.

All of the HD2xxx and HD3xxx parts have a built in HD Audio controller which feeds directly into the HDMI connector. Not sure if audio works over a DVI-to-HDMI dongle -- I think it should but it may need a specific dongle to work.

AFAIK the HD Audio controllers can accept any audio information which can be carried over the HDMI protocol but I don't know that for sure -- will see what I can dig up.

It does need the specific dongle from what I know.

Oh yeah, we've got an AMD employee around... sometimes. Welcome back, John. Stay awhile.

Too much reading, too little memory... sigh.

Its nice to hear some stuff striaght from the source. It will be interesting to see what you dig up John.

I'm sure someone is gonna figure this stuff out and I think AMD/ATI is one step ahead at the moment.

I'm actually just rebuilding my HTPC. I'm getting either the 2600XT or 3650. Leaning towards the 3650 though. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether to go with the DDR2 or DDR3 version. From what I read the DDR2 version was more than enough for watching Blu Ray. But thinking long...er term would I be better off with the DDR3 version of the card.

I just ordered my Zalman 160B HTPC case. I was trying to decide between the Silverstone LC17 and the Zalman. I like the nice clean look of the Silverstone but I really don't need two optical drives. So went with the Zalman.

THis is a really good guide.

Guide to Building an HTPC - AVS Forums

There's no reason to get a 2600XT, or DDR2 on a video card. I'd still be leaning towards a 3850--they're dirt cheap, and very capable cards.

Well here a 2600XT or 3650 is about $75 cheaper than a 3850. Most 3850's up here go for about $200. I can get a 2600Xt for about $100.