Need help with 5.1 audio over GTX 670 HDMI out

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pecheckler

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I have a GTX 670 connected to a Vizio M551d-A2R via HDMI, and the optical output of the TV connected to a VIZIO S4251w-B4 5.1 Soundbar. I am unable to get 5.1 surround sound from the PC with this setup. I am conviced the problem is with the Windows audio or Nvidia audio configuration. Any help is appreciated.

When the PC is connected directly to the sound bar via an optical audio cable, the sound blaster recon 3d passes a dolbey digital 5.1 no problem. This television is capable of passing through both 5.1 DTS and Dolbey Digital 5.1 signals out of the optical connection. I have verified as much using a playstation 3 and received confirmation on that from Vizio support and from reading other costumer reviews mentioning the 5.1 audio passthrough capability. I was impressed that Vizio support was kind enough to troubleshoot with me for an hour and even offered to replace the TV before they would accuse my PC of being at fault.

Here is the playback device properties. Even though it shows dolbey encoded format, that doesn't happen. It also only lists 2 channel audio, which I think should be 5 or 7 channel on such a high end card.
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And here is the nvidia audio settings (all I could find):
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Thanks folks
 
It has to be the TV. Do you have the latest driver? I run my GTX 670's through my Denon receiver and have access to all the 5.1 formats (DTS-HD MA , Dolby TruHD and etc). Optical should at least give you 5.1 but since you are using the TV to downgrade the audio that it has to be the TV since its handling the processing. Does the sound bar support a direct HDMI connection or only Optical?
 
The soundbar is only optical or digital coax. So far i've tried a PS3 and borrowed another blu-ray player too, connected to the TV via HDMI, both pass 5.1 out the TV's optical.

I've spent the last 2 hours reading several years of geforce.com forum topics about this. Going back to the 200 era cards there are a lot of pissed of customers because of this. From what I found several nvidia reps have blamed the televisions and receivers connected for sending back a signal claiming the devices are only 2 channel capable, but more recently they've been asking customers to provide model numbers and EDID to [email protected]. I can only assume that's so future nvidia drivers will support additional devices.

Seems to me like all these vendors need to put their heads together and make their software talk correctly for the consumer's sake.

I already tried the edid override for the display/tv's driver but no luck. I may try the edid override on the graphics card at a later date, but for now not disabling hdcp on all my other displays (or otherwise screwing them up) is more important.
 
Yep. Sounds like a lack of communication between Nvidia and Vizio then. Nothing much you can do about that ;(
 
What is your source material on the pc (games, video files, dvd, blu-ray, etc) and if it is a media option (not a game) what are you using to play it?

The reason I ask this is because you might have a source format issue. Unlike many of Creative's sound cards, Nvidia's (and AMD's) video cards do not include a Dolby Digital or DTS encoder. By default (unless bitstreaming is configured in the appropriate application), audio is passed out via uncompressed LPCM. This is a standard format for HDMI, however, it is not compatible with SPDIF coax or optical connections. As your tv will not have an encoder, it is likely passing through the two stereo chanels that it can in PCM.

Now, connecting directly by optical to your soundcard seems to circumnavigate this issue, as I believe it includes a Dolby Digital and/or DTS encoder, so regardless of application, a 5.1 provided.

If your concerns are primarily for media playback (DD/DTS encoded videos, dvd, blu-ray) make sure your playback software is not configured to decode the audio, but configured to bitstream via your hdmi port. If you're trying to get 5.1 for gaming, I don't think there is a way to do what you want.
 
I discovered that the EDID override driver did resolve the issue, but two settings on the television had to be changed. The TV Speakers had to be set to "off" and the digital audio out setting to changed from PCM to bitstream. Now all source media encoded dolbey digital is outputted as such (skyrim, battlefield 4, Avengers movie).
 
That's awesome that your tv supports bitstreaming, I wish my Sony TV would. Glad to hear you got it sorted out.
 
pecheckler said:
I discovered that the EDID override driver did resolve the issue, but two settings on the television had to be changed. The TV Speakers had to be set to "off" and the digital audio out setting to changed from PCM to bitstream. Now all source media encoded dolbey digital is outputted as such (skyrim, battlefield 4, Avengers movie).
Click to expand...

Sorry to necro this thread, but I have the exact same setup and I'm having problems with getting 5.1 from my gtx 670.

Do you have a link on how to do the edid overdrive? I've been going crazy trying to get it to work, my ps4 bitstreams perfectly and I would love to get this working.
 
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