Explain the Benifit of HD Audio Decoding in an Android Box ?

[NoSkillz]

Just wondering if someone could explain the benefits of the S802-H Chip that offers HD Audio Decoding.

Most people who currently enjoy 5.1 or 7.1 already have a Dolby/DTS capable receiver and let the receiver do the decoding. Most upated android boxes offer HD passthrough sending the signal directly to the receiver which decodes and outputs to the speakers.

What is benefit of android box doing the decoding ? You can't get 5.1 or 7.1 sound without the speaker set up and you cant hook speakers up directly to the android box so I assume you must still connect the box to the receiver.

If you are hooking up directly to the tv it is just going to downscale the signal to what is supported by the tv.

Am I missing something?

[chris613]

If the source media has Dolby/DTS encoding and you do NOT have a receiver to pass-through to, then you need the box to decode it and mixdown to stereo. Hardware decoding alleviates the CPU from this extra load.

[NoSkillz]

If the source media has Dolby/DTS encoding and you do NOT have a receiver to pass-through to, then you need the box to decode it and mixdown to stereo. Hardware decoding alleviates the CPU from this extra load.

But the regular S802 chip already down mixes to stereo. Still don't see the benifit.

[no_spam_for_me]

But the regular S802 chip already down mixes to stereo. Still don't see the benifit.

As chris613 wrote, the s802-H "Hardware decoding alleviates the CPU from this extra load", because it's managed by a special part at the CPU, and not every app is able to software decode (downmix to stereo)...

[chris613]

Yeah, I think no_spam's second point is really the more important one - not all software will downmix for you, so if you have a) No DTS capable receiver, b) DTS encoded source material, and c) your app doesn't do software decoding - then you get no sound at all.

I have a, and b, so I ordered the S802-h model. Even though XMBC will be my primary app and would software decode for me, I hope to get a more responsive interface and better multi-tasking out of the hardware decoder option.

Can someone verify that I've understood this all correctly?

[NoSkillz]

Thanks !! That explains it ! I think I have been lucky enough to only use APPS that downmix for me. I just assumed that the hardware was down mixing it and didn't realize that it was the software doing it.

[antoniovidaljr]

So if I have a receiver I don't need it, right?

[no_spam_for_me]

If you use pass through to your receiver, you don't need it, because the receiver will do the decoding...

[gstar2]

I remember I read something about that there were noise when using spdif. Is this still the case or does ac3/dts output work perfectly with s89 elite?