Surround Sound Issues

[RedOne]

first ill tell you what im working with as this should simplafy things:

my TV is an LG 47lv4400
the HTPC is a home built it only has a pentium 4 processor 3.2gig
8gig ram
Gforce gt430
Sony str de-898 receiver
Win7 pro 64bit

My issue is that i currently have it set up so that the HTPC is connected to the TV using HDMI cable through GPU then audio is passed through tv to receiver using fiber. [tv has a digital audio output and tv manufacturer states does support 5.1] when watching movies or anything i cannot get the 5.1 to work. when i tried to set up WMC 5.1 audio i do not get sound from all my speakers just front L C R SW. when i checked the audio device manager for the TV it is only giving me the option for stereo. i believe this is where the issue lies.

What if anything can i do to try and resolve the issue as i cannot buy a new audio card because all the ones that have fiber output currently need a PCIe slot and i do not have one available on my MOBO. the way i have it set up it should work because i pass the audio from my blueray player through the tv and i can get the 5.1.

Have been wracking my brain for several months now trying to get this to work.

[richard1980]

I think you are misinterpreting the manual. It doesn't say anywhere in the manual that the TV will pass multichannel audio from HDMI input to S/PDIF output. What it says is the HDMI input is capable of accepting a Dolby Digital signal ("HDMI Audio Supported Format: Dolby Digital"). It also says that the S/PDIF output is capable of outputting Dolby Digital received from the TV's internal tuner ("If you want to enjoy digital broadcasting through 5.1-channel speakers..."). But it says nothing about pass-through.

I think it's safe to say that your TV is like nearly every other TV...it doesn't pass Dolby Digital from HDMI to S/PDIF.

[RedOne]

if that is the case then why can i watch a blueray on my blueray player and it pass the 5.1 audio? that is where i cant wrap my brain around...

[richard1980]

I remember a few months ago there was someone else claiming the same thing. After claiming several times that he was passing Dolby Digital through the TV, he made a video to prove it. The only problem is his video showed that he was actually not passing audio through the TV. Instead, the audio was going from the Blu-ray player straight to his AVR. So before you go much further, you may want to double check everything and make sure you are actually routing Blu-ray audio through the TV. You'll also want to check your AVR to make sure it is receiving a true Dolby Digital signal. There will be an indicator that lights up that has the Dolby Digital logo followed by the word "DIGITAL".

[RedOne]

yes i have the blue ray from the player to the tv then sound is out the digital audio port from tv to the receiver. and yes i know the light you are talking about its blue whenever the signal is digital either 2.1 or 5.1 it will come on. happens when i watch cable tv and the hd channels have digital audio or watch the blueray player. also i did contact LG who specifically told me that the tv will pass the digital signal. they were saying the signal was never making it from the computer to the tv. that is why i checked the sound setup on the tv. right clicking on the volume indicator in the lower right hand corner then selecting play back devices then choosing the tv then right clicking on that then choosing configure speakers. this should give you the multiple options for surround or stereo. it only shows stereo.

[jjhtpc]

What you are seeing is due to how you have your setup. The reason that you are seeing blu ray with DD 5.1 is that it is sending the SPDIF over HDMI. I know in POWER DVD there is an option to select your output. You can select HDMI bitstreaming but by default it is setup as SPDIF over HDMI. The tv probably does pass the spdif directly to it's spdif out (no conversion required).

The problem that you are really having though is how you have setup your configuration. As mentioned before your tv will not convert a dd signal to spdif. There are options though and luckily it will give you the best of both worlds. What you can do is setup a dual display mode. The HDMI cable will go to the receiver and this will allow you to have bitstreaming. This will actually give you the full DTS HDMA signal on blu ray not just the spdif core. This will also allow bit-streaming of all television. For the tv you can get a dvi or display port to hdmi adapter/cable.

A few things to note with this type of setup:
1. For bit-streaming you will need a codec pack such as shark007
2. You will need to configure the windows 7 sounds to use stereo and the wmc sounds to your surround field 5.1/7.1

One thing I did not look at was if your receiver has an hdmi port. If it does not.... you don't really have any way to get the setup you really want.