Question regarding Digital Surround Sound

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Coolguy123

Weaksauce
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Nov 8, 2002
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I have an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard. My Receiver is a Harmon Kardon. I'm trying to get my PC to work with my receiver in True digital 5.1 Surround mode. I have the pc hooked up via digital fiber cable. My problem is, Im only getting 2 speakers that are digital (Left and Right Front) vs the other 5. Why is this ? Am i missing drivers for it to go true digital to all my speakers. Does the fiber port on the back of the motherboard not support 5.1 digital, only 2 channels ?

Here is the info regarding my Motherboards audio onboard.

Realtek ALC850, 8-channel CODEC
Audio Sensing and Enumeration Technology
Coaxial/Optical S/PDIF out ports on back I/O

Is this my problem, why i cant go full 5 speaker digital ?

When i play my PS3 all my speakers are working in true digital mode. The PS3 is hooked up the same way, via a Digital fiber cable.

Appreciate any help.

Thanks
 
In order to get 5.1 over optical audio or digital coax, you'll need to first have it converted to Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1.

If this conversion is not done, you will be limited to stereo (2 channel) uncompressed audio. I guess you've already found that out, huh? =\

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Your PS3 does this conversion automatically, so you will always get 5.1 DD or DTS with that.

DVDs and Blu-rays come pre-recoded with DD or DTS 5.1, so they will also work fine.

Newer soundcards will do this conversion as well, under the names Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect.

I'm guessing your motherboard audio doesn't do this sort of encoding, hence your current situation. Workarounds might include using the analog 5.1 outputs (which should work fine), or looking for software/drivers that do DD or DTS encoding.
 
Where could I buy software to convert in Dolby Digital or in DTS Connect ?
How does this all come together when i play a dvd ?
 
Assuming you're talking about only movies, you should only need to change settings in your DVD player software to output surround sound, wherever that option may be. If you're looking to do this with PC games or other things that don't have pre-recorded DD/DTS sound, you're pretty much going to have to get new hardware (sound card) to do it.
 
You can even get DolbyDigital Live with X-Fi XtremeMusic. Recently DDL was unlocked for them. Search for topic.
 
Trombe said:
Assuming you're talking about only movies, you should only need to change settings in your DVD player software to output surround sound, wherever that option may be. If you're looking to do this with PC games or other things that don't have pre-recorded DD/DTS sound, you're pretty much going to have to get new hardware (sound card) to do it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am only looking to have DD/DTS with Movies, But i do not have that for whatever reason. Is this a codec problem ? Is this hardware problem ? Software problem ?

Ive installed several codes that had audio with it. It didnt solve my problem. I have Power DVD player to play my DVD's Is this what your refering to by DVD Software ?
Power DVD doesnt use my DD / DTS, Windows Media player doesnt play DD/DTS. Seems like i cannot get this to work.

X-Fi XtremeMusic is a hardware. This will not work with my speakers / receiver as it doesnt have a Digital fiber cable output.

This is software related i take it ?
So what do i need o adjust to make this work using DD / DTS ? Yes, im only talking about movie DVD's

Thanks
 
There should be an option in Power DVD's sound menu to enable AC3 pass-through, or SPDIF pass-through, or some kind of pass-through. Maybe it says "use external decoder" - it's been a while since I used it, but the option should be there.

That will make it send the DVD audio directly to your receiver for decoding. If that option is enabled and you're still getting stereo sound look for a similar option in your sound control panel / drivers. Basically you want to make sure it does not decode the DVD audio on the PC.
 
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