How to allow pc to stream in stereo for music so I can utilize the plii and neo 6 features of my...

Hey there, I've done extensive web research into this and can't find any answer, maybe I'm not asking the right questions. Basically I have a PC that is hooked up to my Denon 1913 via HDMI. When I configure the speakers on my PC, obviously I choose the 7.1 speaker setup for games and movies. Where the problem lies is with Music. Unfortunately when you set the speakers up on PC to 7.1, the receiver only see's the 7.1 option. So basically, while great for movies and games, I lose the option of having a stereo sound mixed by the receiver's dolby plii or DTS Neo 6. Right now for music I can switch the speaker config on PC to stereo to have the receiver only see a stereo source thus allowing me to utilize the Denon's plii and neo 6 features, but it's a pain in the behind to have to configure the speakers every time I switch from music to movies or games. Any advice? Is there a program that would bipass the pc's sending of a "7.1 channel" information to the stereo? or a hotkey to do it quickly?

I'm not sure I follow you, I need the pc to send out what the receiver perceives as stereo sound, thus being able to utilize the stereo's plii and neo capabilities. I don't want the stereo just sent into different speakers by being split in 7, i.e., " Multi Channel Stereo" where every speaker plays the 2 channel track, I'm hoping to use the Dolby and or DTS splitting of the stereo signal, it's a much better sound. Short of switching my speaker config to 2 channel, though, as I said, I can't figure it out. Sorry if I'm repeating myself I'm just trying to maybe make myself a little more clear. I'm running out through a AMD 7870 XT for what it's worth using catalyst software.

Hmm I was wondering if that would work, but I thought it surely couldn't make sense that I couldn't find something to allow HDMI, which carries all the signals optical does plus the extra 2 channels, be able to accomplish the same operation. Although I don't use pc for blueray, I do game on it a bit, don't know if any games utilize 7.1 sound yet.. probably though. Which just brings me back to the same problem of having to change options every time I want to listen to music / game, ie enable optical for music then enable hdmi for movies. That's the same as having to switch my speaker config from 2 to 7.1 all the time, at least doing it that way I don't have to shell for extra hardware. There's got to be a way to let the pc know to just send a 2 channel stream to the receiver instead of a 7.1 signal, after all it's a computer. I can't believe other people haven't run into this problem before!

After running through a ton of music players I found one that solved my problem. It's actually a music player / video player called XBMC. It's interface is gorgeous, and is ULTRA configurable. I don't know if you've experience with it but it's like Windows media center if it was open source and didn't suck. Lots of options, but not only did I get it to output my stereo source music correctly, I've also got it auto detecting the source so my movies indeed play in their proper surround sound format. My test file was one of the walking dead's episodes, and couldn't believe that the 5.1 playback was even better then Zoom player, which I've always loved. Anyways looks like I'll be playing with XBMC for a while, check it out!