Issues and Conclusion
IssuesWhile the card worked well in most circumstances, I did come across some issues with it. I had no real issues when playing Blu-ray or standard DVD content, but when I tried HD-DVDs and other audio functions, I hit a few snags.
The first issue I encountered was when I had left the PC on and turned off the TV and receiver overnight. No matter how I turned on the receiver and TV in what order, it could not re-initialize the video output of the PC. This was not a problem with the PC when I was just using the native HDMI output of the 785G chipset, but when introducing the HDAV 1.3 Slim, it suddenly had problems re-initializing video. The only option was to try to shut the PC down and reboot it. Once the PC was rebooting, everything would come back as normal.
The cable clutter can be a bit annoying with a couple of HDMI cables winding their way around the system and the AV center.
The second issue I noticed is when playing back some HD-DVDs. The audio would start to lag the scene and never synch back up again. It would progressively get worse until I pause the show and hit play again. Then audio would be fine for a few minutes and then would start to noticeably lag from then on out. This only happened with HD-DVDs.
The third issue was with a couple other HD-DVDs. The audio would be synched up, but when Dolby True-HD was enabled, it would only output it as 2 channel LPCM. A workaround for this is to select TrueHD on the movie, but go into settings on the player and choose 7.1 surround. This would then transmit the movie in 8 channel LPCM.
I did have one other problem, but it was an easy fix. When Transformers 2 came out, I picked it up for my kids. It didn’t want to play. Apparently some new copy protection was implemented, and the previous version of TMT3 did not support it. Downloading the latest version from Asus and installing it fixed the problem.
Conclusion
I can honestly say that I have enjoyed my time with this card. It does (for the most part) exactly what it is supposed to do. It is able to bitstream HD audio from Blu-rays without issue. It is also a fully functional sound card for any other PC application. It features the latest audio standards for both media and games. It is clean and it works well.
The greatest strength and weakness of this card is that it is meant for the PC home theater. It is highly adaptable to a large base of applications, from movies to music to games. If a user has one of the discontinued BD/HD-DVD drives in their system, it can handle both BD and HD-DVD playback with TMT3. It is a fully digital solution, so the only digital to analog conversion will be either at the headphones jack from the PC or the user’s receiver for their home theater system. The weakness of a PC is that it already requires so much DRM to play protected content, something invariably gets broken in the process. Frequent software updates look like they are required, because the PC is not a closed box such as a standalone BD player. Put a BD in a standalone player, and it just works. Put a BD in a PC, and fingers must be crossed.
Asus is actively pursuing the bugs I have described above. While these issues are annoying, they are not exactly deal breakers. The board does work as advertised, and unfortunately for those with HD-DVD libraries… HD-DVD is dead and we have to deal with it and its disappearing support as best we can.
I enjoyed TMT3 as a program far more than I have the last PowerDVD version that supports BD and HD-DVD. It seems to work well, and other than having to update it to play Transformers 2, it has been pretty much issue free.
The card is expensive. That is probably the biggest downside of it all. Users can get a fully functional standalone Blu-ray player for $159. Of course no Blu-ray player that I know of supports playback of HD-DVD. A HTPC is still more flexible than a standalone player, especially in terms of other media types (think Hulu). So perhaps that price is worth it? I guess that fully depends on the user and the depth of their pocketbook.
Overall the Asus HDAV 1.3 Slim is a good product, at a reasonable price. It has all the audio features a HTPC enthusiast will need, and a form factor that will fit in essentially any HTPC case. Audio and video quality are not diminished due to the pass through nature of the card, but that is due to it being a fully digital solution where the only analog conversion is going to be at the receiver or with a tube TV. It supports deep color and 24p playback, so it should handle everything a user can through at it. If a user has a full HD-DVD library, then this card and playback software will give the best path for future compatibility.
Update: When considering the price of a standalone copy of Total Media Theater 3, the value of this card somewhat comes to the fore. Asus and TMT3 have fixed a lot of the issues that I have seen with this combination, and it has been working flawlessly for us since the updates to TMT3. With that in mind we are giving this product the PC Perspective Silver Award.
