Hi all - hopefully someone will have an idea of why I am having trouble here. I have the following hardware setup and am not getting 5.1 surround out of my PC:
- Onkyo HT-S5100 7.1 home theater
- LG combo Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player in my PC
- Cyberlink PowerDVD (came with the BR/HDDVD player but it does claim to support DTS etc.)
Here is the chain of events:
1 - with Creative Audigy 2 ZS: tried connecting to receiver via "mini-optical" but was never able to get any audio at all.
2 - with onboard SoundMax card (Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus):
- First with Optical connection (known good cable) out of the card, never could get any sound at all
- Second with Coax Digital Audio connection. I can get sound but no surround sound from any application
When setting the number of speakers under the SoundMax preferences, it seems to only apply to analog output. Is this true? Also, do I want to be selecting SPDIF output from within Applications?? When I do that, sound studders (almost like something has crashed) until I set it back to something else. Selecting 5.1 in (for instance) VLC in a file which is encoded for surround will only produce some of the channels (I'm thinking Front L/R). If I set it to stereo, then all of the speakers play, but it's only L/R stereo. Same issue when using PowerDVD.
I am willing to buy a new sound card, as long as I can know it will do the job. Am I right in thinking that the sound card can be the cheapest available, as long as it supports optical out? Also, is there any way to get 5.1 out of PC games via optical connection?
Any ideas you may have, please throw them my way! I'm desparate to finally watch the Dark Knight in BluRay + 5.1 surround on my brand new system.
TIA,
Jon
- Onkyo HT-S5100 7.1 home theater
- LG combo Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player in my PC
- Cyberlink PowerDVD (came with the BR/HDDVD player but it does claim to support DTS etc.)
Here is the chain of events:
1 - with Creative Audigy 2 ZS: tried connecting to receiver via "mini-optical" but was never able to get any audio at all.
2 - with onboard SoundMax card (Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus):
- First with Optical connection (known good cable) out of the card, never could get any sound at all
- Second with Coax Digital Audio connection. I can get sound but no surround sound from any application
When setting the number of speakers under the SoundMax preferences, it seems to only apply to analog output. Is this true? Also, do I want to be selecting SPDIF output from within Applications?? When I do that, sound studders (almost like something has crashed) until I set it back to something else. Selecting 5.1 in (for instance) VLC in a file which is encoded for surround will only produce some of the channels (I'm thinking Front L/R). If I set it to stereo, then all of the speakers play, but it's only L/R stereo. Same issue when using PowerDVD.
I am willing to buy a new sound card, as long as I can know it will do the job. Am I right in thinking that the sound card can be the cheapest available, as long as it supports optical out? Also, is there any way to get 5.1 out of PC games via optical connection?
Any ideas you may have, please throw them my way! I'm desparate to finally watch the Dark Knight in BluRay + 5.1 surround on my brand new system.
TIA,
Jon
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