Why doesnt X-Fi have on-the-fly AC3 encodi

Question

I dont understand why Creative didnt add on-the-fly AC3 encoding on the X-Fi - considering the cost of the card, and 5million transistors? Surely it could at least be done in Software (drivers) with a bit of help from the CPU?
HDA X-Mystique 7. Gold is only a $80 sound card and has a C-Media 8768 8channel chip that encodes all audio (stereo, games, DVD's, etc..) in the PC to Dolby Digital 7. and outputs it as SPDIF - no analog inputs, no confusing DigitalDIN connectors. Just one optical connector
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/x-mystique/
And considering all creative cards have major PCI Latency problems on various PC's (my SBLi've cuts out when passthroughing AC3 via Digital TV Tuner software, yet my onboard realtek AC97 chip works perfectly - changed the PCI latencies with no luck), I think I'm totally losing faith in Creatives workmanship Message Edited by Anarchi on 0-24-2005 0:50 PM

Answer 1

Partly because Creative have their heads up their rear ends when it comes to using a digital connection. They're more concerned with analog and do very little with the digital out which Dolby Digital Li've uses. I'm sure most are aware that only the advantage of using the digital out on a sound card and having speakers capable of decoding dd and dts is for movie watching.
Other activities will be limited to stereo which is fine for me I don't need my other speakers around me outputting the same thing. I will however be purchasing a set of speakers without a decoder next time probably Klipschs because I have horrible problems playing dvds in Windows XP MCE 05 with the digital out on(Logitech Z-680 decoding the dd or dts stream).
I didn't have the problems before with my SB Audigy 2 zs, but after responding to my email I sent Creative thinks it's MCE which is hogwash. FYI my problems are out of sync audio/video and glitchy audio when playing dvds I have to sometimes rewind or use the skip chapter button to correct the audio.