Help with PC & Home Theatre please.

[Liam Porter]

I know this is an Airsoft Forum, but I'm stumped and people here are nice and knowledgeable, so I may as well ask for help.

Earlier today, I connected my PC to my TV and Home Theatre, using HDMI to TV, Optical to HT, in hope to get my PC games on 42" screen with surround sound. Got the 42" screen bit working fine, having a lot of trouble with surround sound.

I have HDMI out my graphics card going to the TV, and optical audio out the motherboard going to the input on the HT.

The two front L & R speakers work fine, as does the subwoofer, but the centre and two rear ones don't have any sound at all.

I've searched for drivers for various things and updated what needed it, but still doesn't work.

In "Sound" on Control Panel, it has two devices:

Speakers, High Definition Audio Device - this is my desktop speakers.

Digital Audio (S/PDIF), High Definition Audio Device - this is what I need to set up.

If I right click on 'Speakers', I get the option to configure, which gives me a list of modes, including 5.1 surround and stereo.

If I right click on 'Digital Audio (S/PDIF)' then I don't get this option, even if it's set as the default audio device, so I can't change to 5.1 surround.

I've had a good search on Google and asked on Yahoo! Answers, found a few things about encoding and decoding 5.1 to send it down Optical cables, could this be it?

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on this:

Motherboard: ASUS P7H55-M Pro

Graphics Card: NVidia GTX 460

HDD (if it's any help): Samsung 5400rpm 1TB SATA

Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR3 RAM

Thanks for any help at all, would quite like this working for when TES5: Skyrim comes out so glad I started setting up early.

 

[SheriffHD]

Err, well personaly, your best bet would be to run a cable stright from your sound card, unless you have onboard then you would most likly get crappy audio from that.

You can pick up 5.1 sound cards rather cheap these days and make it more simple when doing things like this.............

Or you can do what i have done, get a 7.2 sound card a mixing desk high quality monitors(speakers) and steal a theater sub and gooo f*cking nuts

 

[Liam Porter]

Sound card's on the motherboard I think, definitely doesn't have a separate one.

Any suggestions as to one that would be suitable?

Thanks.

 

[SheriffHD]

check out ebuyer.com

http://www.ebuyer.com/123088-creative-soun...d-70sb057002003

these are good starters, but im bias towards them, in all honesty you could most proberly just do with some of the other cheaper ones that retail at £4-£10.

 

[Liam Porter]

Thanks, I like Ebuyer . You know one that has optical out?

And they need Dolby Digital encoding, right?

Looking through Ebuyer, found this, it has 5.1 and digital output, would it do the job?

 

[SheriffHD]

yeah should do the job fantasticaly.

And yea ebuyer rules, majority of my PC build came from their and my 20inch widescreen samsung which i picked up for £99 Score

 

[Liam Porter]

Thanks, I got all my PC parts from there, need a new keyboard and monitor still though, may as well get those now too

 

[Deva]

You shouldn't need a soundcard, your onboard clearly has it. What happens if you just run a standard 3.5mm lead into your TV? Do you need to use the TV in the first place? Your monitor is likely far better for games than your TV, and if you want gaming immersion then a headset is the way to go, not a surround sound system.

 

[Liam Porter]

IT doesn't do 5.1 though, which I want . If I run 3.5mm to my TV then sound just comes from the TV, and nah I don't need to use my TV, but I just want to for games that I use a controller for, so not FPS games.

My monitor's rubbish, so the TV's a lot better, and I just want to use my surround sound for more than films, as I don't play Xbox very often any more.