Arstechnica: Creative lies on missing DTS/Dolby Decoding feature

Question

Creative Says : "these functions are not supported at driver level in Windows Vista." This isn't true. When two of the driver files from a standard X-Fi card are replaced with two driver files drawn from a Dell-specific driver available at the company's support [url="http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R44728&for matcnt=&libid=0&fileid=9372">web site[/url], DTS and DD decoding immediately reappear as options and function correctly."
"Creative might be able to get away with saying that DTS and DD decoding aren't enabled at the driver level for X-Fi and Audigy cards, but the functionality is clearly baked into the driver and is thus supported."
[url="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/2008033-creative-irate-after-modder-spruces-up-vista-x-fi-drivers.html">Arstechnica story on the Dolby & DTS Decoding scandal
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Below is my open letter to Creative about this situation ....
To Creative Executi'ves ,
I am a core customer, someone who has been purchasing your cards for years. Hear me out.
What you may not realize is this whole backlash about your drivers is not new, it has been building up slowly for months and has just now come to a head. With both my Audigy and more recently my X-fi Fatality card on XP, I have always used my Creative card as the center of sound on both my computer and my entertainment system. I took it for granted that after spending so much money on the ultimate sound card, that I could just plug in my cable box or dvd player into x-fi and my Klipsch speakers would hum. After spending so much money on computer speakers that would also double as my TV center speakers I was not about to buy another external decoder to do something I expect my sound card to do.
At first after moving to Vista I thought that this feature was eventually coming, that you were working diligently to get my x-fi's decoding capabilities back. Then month after month my expectations dwindled. Imagine my anger when I come to realize that this feature was purposely removed at the software level. That by simply adding two files from a x-fi dell driver that the feature came back. Then on top of it you pour salt into the wound by never fully explaining the reason why you removed these important features. Your explanation was simply that it was not supported and that PowerDVD would now handle all Dolby/DTS decoding. After months of waiting your explanation was far from sufficient. Imagine how annoyed i was trying to figure out how to get PowerDVD to actually decode something from an outside source , which it does not. In my case, and many others on this forum your explanation was lacking. Im going to take a leap and assume that something about Vista's DRM has prevented you from decoding Dolby & DTS. If that is the case why not come out and just explain it to your customers as such. Your lack of transparency on this issue has just been plain bad and now because of it you are angering your customer base.
Let me be clear, in my eyes, this situation has severely hurt your companies reputation and brand. The sad thing about this is that in the end this is not a story about lacking features. It's a story about a company with good products that just did not know how to effecti'vely communicate with it's customers. Will I ever buy another creative product again, I dunno. But I do know that this whole fiasco has decreased the chances that I will. If I do , it will most definitely not be one of your upper end products as I have always purchased in the past.
Im done with this rant, im going to play some Battlefield 2 with Ultra High EAX settings. Hey, at least they did not take away all my features like they did with those poor Audigy users
Message Edited by soundfire on 04-05-2008 09:4 PMMessage Edited by soundfire on 04-05-2008 09:45 PM

Answer 1

PawPaw, I feel your pain ! I currently own both an Audigy Platinum and a Creative X-fi Fatality. The main reason I purchased the upgrade cards which included breakout boxes is for the optical/digital in feature. As I say in my letter, I have, for years hooked up my DVD and cable box to provide my theater entertainment though my computer speakers. The setup worked great?
Creative in essence has retroacti'vely removed the feature that was the motivating factor in my purchase of their upper model cards. By making the decision not to add this "expected" feature on Vista (The default OS)? Creative, as I see it has in actuality removed a defining functionality from it's product line. It has made the front box with all it's special hook ups, pointless. Angering your enthusiast base is just not a good way to bring your company back into the green. If Creative had at least explained the reason for the feature removals, that's one thing. It would at least be a start towards improving customer communication.
It's sad to see such a staple in the tech industry go down hill so fast. While the company executi'ves in singapore are huddling around planning their company comeback.... Which is no doubt the next greatest thing high fidelity MP3 players . They ought to take some time out to think about the customer again because a company li'ves and dies on it's customers, not it's technology.
My first sound blaster card : Sound Blaster 6 - 993
Possibly my Last? : Creative x-fi fatalty - 2007