As you know, it is possible to drive dual monitors with the current generation of graphic cards. However, is it possible to output dual sound with a sound card?
I want to be able to play a movie on my TV (using the graphic's card s-video out) and use my PC at the same time. Would it be possible to direct the movie's sound to the rear output of the sound card and PC's sounds to the front output? So that TV and PC audio do not interfere one another?
Silmara
By the way, I am also planning on a DVB-PCI card. Your answer will help me in deciding if I want to go with a S/W or H/W DVB-PCI card (the s/w card does not have its dedicated video/audio outputs and the MPEG2 decoding is performed by the PC's CPU).
I was able to answer myself ... I have an Audigy 2 sound card as my normal audio renderer.
So just by curiousity I went to the motheboard's BIOS and enabled the onboard sound (AC97). Since its possible to select the sound ouput renderer on various video players (such as BS Player), I was able to play a film on my TV (w/ film sound using the AC97 rendering) and at the same time play an mp3 on the PC (via the Audigy 2).
The CPU load when watching a movie varies from 0 to 25% on Amd 64 3000+. I think I can live with that. If I could go back, I think I would have gone for an ATI All In Wonder instead of the normal models to benefit for H/W decoding.