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I have a 5.1 system with a receiver, speakers and sub, in my living room, and i have connected my pc to my projector.

Current setup: PC > HDMI > hdmi switch & audio extractor

hdmi switch & audio extractor > HDMI (out) > Projector

&

hdmi switch & audio extractor > Optical > Resever

I can get audio to the spekers from the PC. But i can't get real 5.1 surround sound to work. I can't change the default format to 5.1 and in "configure speaker" only FR and FL work.

Do i need to buy a sound card and run optical all the way to the resever from my PC? And if i would need to buy a sound card would it have to have to be a surround sound sound card or is it just necessary that it has a optical port?

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  • 1
    Does the operating system (Windows?) sound settings show 5.1 is enabled?
    – Austin T French
    Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 16:24
  • what OS are you using?
    – Keltari
    Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 17:02
  • windows 10. i can't change the default format to 5.1 and "Configure speaker" dosen't work
    – arvid werlin
    Commented Dec 5, 2019 at 21:04

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Optical (TOSLINK) audio connections do not have enough bandwidth for uncompressed audio with more than two DVD-quality PCM channels. More channels are only possible with compressed audio formats like Dolby Digital or DTS (those are present on DVD and Blu-ray).

You could, maybe (and that’s a big maybe) get it to work using the Dolby Access app for Windows 10.

What you actually need is of course an HDMI-capable AV receiver. HDMI supports 2-8 channels of uncompressed audio in almost any quality.

HDMI audio sinks report supported audio configurations to the audio source. That’s why Windows is only showing stereo.

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  • It is a 5.1 suroundssound A/V receiver with hdmi. But it doesn't support hdmi as an audio source, only optical and coaxial that's why i got the hdmi switch & audio extractor. My theory now is that hdmi is not capable of sending 5.1 audio and thats why i wonderd if, setting up optical between the pc and resever directly instead of after the hdmi switch & audio extractor, was nessessary.
    – arvid werlin
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 15:01
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    HDMI supports at least 8 channels of uncompressed audio.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 15:07
  • So if my receiver would support HDMI audio everything would work perfectly? please don't say yes. I literally got it as a home theater package, i feel a little scammed :(
    – arvid werlin
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 15:16
  • The trick usually is to go through one to the other, HDMI all the way, not try to split the signal early. I'm guessing it's your splitter box that's messing things up.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 15:21
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    Yeah the hdmi ports are video only, but thanks for cheering me up though :), i think the previous owner is understanding and willing to take it back.
    – arvid werlin
    Commented Dec 6, 2019 at 15:53

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