I have a Shuttle SN85G4 with a ATI 9000 All-In-Wonder video card. The motherboard has 6 channel audio support through NVidia audio chipset. IT has SPDIF I/O in the form of two TOSLINK ports and a regular analog speaker port that you would find on any computer. My video card has S Video output which is properly providing video from my video sources, i.e. TV turner built into video board and also from movies I have copied on my HD. I am using Windows Media and CyberLink Power DVD 4.0 for video playing. All computer sounds like the windows power-on and critical application sounds are being outputed through the analog connector only. I have had limited success playing and hearing video in certain formats through my 990 with full surround effects working correctly. On certain video sources like DIVX encoded ones, it plays the audio through the analog output only and nothing is being sent to the 990 via the TOSLINK. Is there any way to create a signal to be sent out the TOSLINK so that I can enjoy my movies through my 990 and not my computer speakers? All my MP3 and WAV songs I have on my computer are also only being sent out the analog port. There is an upgraded version of POWER DVD 7.0 which lists all sorts of new audio formats that I don’t think 4.0 contains that I have contains listed below:

Supported Audio Formats:
• DTS-ES* NEW • Dolby Pro Logic IIx**
• DTS 96/24** NEW • Dolby Virtual Speaker**
• DTS Neo:6* NEW • Dolby Headphone**
• AAC decoding** NEW • MLP Lossless**
• DTS 5.1** • SRS TruSurround XT*
• DVD-Audio*** • LPCM audio support
• Dolby Digital (5.1) • MP3
• Dolby Digital EX** • WAV

Would purchasing a software package like this fix my output issues or would it still send the signal to my desktop speakers. Any ideas or suggestions on how I could accomplish what I indicated would be greatly appreciated.

Just wanted to add to my post that I understand that I can accomplish some of this with a USB cord but I'm not sure how that would interfere with DTS soundtracks which are properly being sent to my 990 through the TOSLINK. It is my understanding that you can't send DTS information through the USB input on a 990. Is this a true statement?

The 990's USB input supports PCM only, so you couldn't pass Dolby Digital or DTS bitstreams through it. You'll need the TOSLINK connection for those formats, which means figuring out what settings or software is needed to feed a native bitstream from DVD sources and to generate PCM stereo for other sources. I'm not sure what software might be required for that, but there are some good HTPC forums around that could probably give you a wider array of answers (there aren't many HTPC users around here, I'm afraid). AVS might be a good place to start.

I have resolved most of the audio problems by downloading the NVIDIA NVMixer which is a free driver from the NVIDIA website for the chipset in my PC. The controls are much better than the Windows audio controls for my system and it has a SPDIF volume control for digital out. This has solved most of my problems thus far. Thanks for your help gonk. I did find some helpful info at the AVS forums as you indicated.