Help gettin reciever to reconise 5.1 with Audigy 2

samo-ice

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I recently bought a Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum 7.1 sound card becuase i wanted to connect my yamaha 5.1 speakers/yamaha rx-v350 reciever up to my pc and expirence dolby digital sound in games.
I put the card in and connected up the drive bay box, loaded up the drivers and setup the speakers in the THX setup console.
all would go well you think?
Well there not :(
I have connected via optical spdif and my reciever only says its gettting a 2 channel sound input.
How do i get my audigy 2 to send 5.1 sound to my dolby digital reciever ?
Many thanksfor help :D
I got the card from EBuyer

 

astrallite

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The receiver will show a Dolby Digital signal when actually playing a Dolby Digital source like a DVD movie.

The Audigy 2 can send pre-encoded Dolby Digital sources (like DVD movies) to your receiver, and the receiver will decode the Dolby Digital signal. However, the Audigy 2 cannot encode regular surround channels from the PC to Dolby Digital itself, which is why, in the abscence of a Dolby Digital source, you only get 2-channel output.

If you want passive digital encoding of the PC's surround channels at all times, you need a sound card that can encode Dolby Digital or DTS in real time. Creative do not sell cards that do this.
 

samo-ice

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what the hell?
it says dolby digital 5.1 on the box... its got optical out gota better proccessor than my old nforce 2 board.. yet it cant process 5.1 dolby digital via spdif?
i feel ripped off :(
Ive tried every spdif option i can see , still only 2 channels.
 

Clob

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If you explain to us what your doing maybe we can help some... What DVD software are you using? How exactly is it connected to your reciever?
 

samo-ice

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Connected via : optical
What is the problem? : 1) all the settings in the thx setting and the speaker settings are set to 5.1 channels with digital output only.
2) My yamaha reciever only lights up L R speaker lights on the front lcd rather than all 6 lights like it normally does.In the speaker diagnostic program it only says "front left , front right," the rest ofthe speakers are quiet.
3) i have tried using the SPDIF passthrough in Power DVD but the sound istnt going straight to the reciever it is running through the soundacrd and not getin dolbyor dts sound .
4) All i want is to have 5.1 Dolby in Games and movies as it sounds sucky otherwise.

is there a tweak to enable DDL on here? or to get 5.1 all the time?
 

astrallite

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#2) My yamaha reciever only lights up L R speaker lights on the front lcd rather than all 6 lights like it normally does.In the speaker diagnostic program it only says "front left , front right," the rest ofthe speakers are quiet.

A: Ok, as was stated before, unless you DDL or DTSC real time encoding, you all you are going to get is 2-channel when there is no pre-encoded surround source.

#3) i have tried using the SPDIF passthrough in Power DVD but the sound istnt going straight to the reciever it is running through the soundacrd and not getin dolbyor dts sound .

A: You need the Deluxe versions minimum for Dolby Digital passthrough. The free none-Deluxe editions do not offer this. Try VLC player, like clob suggested, if you need a free player.

#4) ll i want is to have 5.1 Dolby in Games and movies as it sounds sucky otherwise.

is there a tweak to enable DDL on here? or to get 5.1 all the time?

A: You can get 5.1 surround in movies if your DVD player can bypass DD5.1, and you have everything correctly configured on your receiver.

There is no tweak to enable DDL. It's a hardware function on various soundcards and external encoders. How do you get 5.1 without spending a dime? Hook up the analog lineouts to your receiver.
 

iroc

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Your soundcard can only decode bit straems not encode it. Game audio are not DTS or Dolby Digital only DVD’s, the Yamaha also only decode these to formats. The soundcard decode the digital DTS or Dolby Digital to analog 7.1 channels.
Use the 6 channel analog inputs on your amp for game and the optic input for DVD playback. The DVD playback software must have DTS or Dolby Digital 6 channel capabilities. Set the playback software to spdf out, set amp to DVD input and select the DTS or Dolby Digital sound stream on the disk.
 

IcY18

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i have a set of logitech z-5500 speakers and it has a setting on its small reciever that controls volume and i can turn it from stereo to 5.1 to PLII Music and says its THX , DTS and Dolby Digital on it...i'm not sure if this reciever converts it or what but when i run 5.1 on it my onboard soundcard sounds great and just like 5.1, i'm sure it would be better if it were not onboard but i'm not exactly sure why your having a problem, in other words i'm saying you should have a setting on your set of speakers or reciever to change it...
 

g-paw

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To set up surround playback on your receiver, the receiver must do the encoding not the sound card. On the Creative support website there are instructions on how to set this up with a Creative card. Sorry I don't have the exact website address but this was discussed a while back on this forum and this is how I found about about the Creaative instructions
 

xChaoSx

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So you cannot have 5.1 digital surround sound from a PC to a reciver? Or you just cant hear DTS or DD surround sound? I have an old Pioneer reciever hooked upt to 5.1 speakers, but im running it through analog. I was thinking of upgrading to a newer reciever that has Optical capabilities. Is it worth it?
 

ara

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@chaos:

it depends on the conditions (as far as i've had experience), it is possible to get 5.1 through a decoder (but afaik only when it's a DDL source), however, when you have games and such, you're gonna have to use a six channel input/output (analog RCA connections) i still haven't tried to see if i can pass DDL through the six channel output...

@samo-ice:

I have a similiar reciever (i think a generation newer generation and smaller (RX-V430)), i find that the 5.1 works if you use 6channel input and if you use 6 RCA cables. i have used 5.1 through one digital cable before (spdif) however, that was when i used a dedicated DVD decoder (which came with my dvd-rom)

@strange stranger:

i, out of curiousity, tried using the digital cable (which i think will work just as well as a normal RCA cable) and enabled SPDIF and SPDIF passthrough, but as others said, this would require the sound card to encode the stream into a dolby digital/dts stream which the reciever can interpret (even though the passthrough options says you would require an external decoder, i think this refers to if there is already an encoded format) (in short, it did the same thing his computer did)

@samo-ice again:

i tried doing the same thing some years ago and failed, i think the best option would be to get six channel cables and to use the optical (supposing 5.1 works with DVD's), for your DVD viewing, that way, you'll be getting the best of both worlds

hope that sort of helps...
Ara
 

ara

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i meant a DVD should work, but i didn't try that, i meant other sources would have to be coded in DDL/DTS before being sent, which as others said, is not done. So if it's already coded, it should work, if not, it will just send a stereo signal (afaik) albeit a digital one

Ara