help - SPDIF only sending sound to front speakers

Digital out unless you have a fancy card with an encoder is pass thru of whatever comes out of the DVD drive, but just 2.1 (left, right, and sub) for everything else.

The Dolby etc audio stuff related to your motherboard is for "decoding' and output via the analog connections only.

OTOH I am just about to post my own questions on the digital out stuff, so maybe I have it all wrong.

You need to have the soundcard send the DD stream, which means turning off all internal decoders, and have the program you're using set to pass through the stream as well. Both of those are done through their respective softwares.

From the Intel support faq linked to your motherboard (click the support tab)

It is common to hear only front right and front left channels from a multichannel receiver when it is connected to S/PDIF. If your receiver has discrete multichannel analog connections, it is recommended that they be connected to the Analog Front-Out, Rear-Out, and Center/Subwoofer Out. See Creative Labs' knowlegebase article 4438 for additional information.

I had no luck finding article 4438, but the creative faq on the Dolby Digital Live says basically the same as the above, connect via analog.

*** STILL *** you should have some kind of pass through mode for the DVD, check the setup in the motherboard manual, or maybe somebody smart will chime in here. I know on my PC I had to connect a two wire jumper from the digital out on the DVD to the motherboard, but I think some newer ones grab the data from the IDE buss connection.

Sounds like the sound card needs to be set to pass through as wel. This should be something you installed along with the motherboard. You may be able to access an audio console in device manager to turn off any decoding, but I'm unfamiliar with your board so I can't say for sure. Check the documentation on how to set your onboard audio properties, it seems to be what you're missing.

Even though you don't have a sound "card" his hint is correct. You also need to look in the sound "configuration" for your sound "chipset" which will be in control panel most likely and make sure ac3 decode is off or spdif pastthrough for DD and DTS is on. (depending how they word it.) Even though it's set to use spdif in the application that doesn't mean decoding is turned off on the chip itself.

Troy

I had a similar problem, but found the issue in the sound controll panel in windows, to make sure there is an s/p dif passthrough tick box, if not, then might require a registry tweak, or new drivers.

I actually Uninstalled the included drivers that came with the motherboard & had to force windows to use the 'windows certified' drivers, then I had s/pdif passthrough tick box appeared.

took a while as windows always seemd to reinstall the SB drivers, until I removed the inf out of the windows/drivers/inf folder.

might help... but it was a while ago now.

Sorry, I meant sound device. I do understand how these issues can be very frustrating, we're here to help.

Just as an explanation for further discourse, I may call integrated video a video card cause my mind works that way.

Just found this thread - so hopefully someone will read it...

I just tested my G965WH with SPDIF output to a receiver. Using onboard audio with INtel Audio studio and Nvidia decoders. I'm finding that i can't get DD/DTS pass through in MCE2005 with the latest drivers.

When I'm watching a DVD, if I go to Nvidia PureVideo audio settings tab and select "receiver" and "SPDIF", the receiver shows Dolby Digital (or DTS). But when I go back to Media Center (while the DVD is still playing) it reverts back to 2 channel PCM. What the...?

Anyone else have this issue?

This is a real pain in the arse thing. I had a Gateway with the Intel 965 chipset and I could never find a way to get it to do multichannle pass through finally took it back to BB, nice box in a lot of ways i.e. toslink and supposedly had HDCP but the graphics controller would not sync to my HP 6580n via the DVI out on the box. An Nvida card could have fixed that but I was frustrated with the out of box experience and wanted something that would work at some level stratight out of the box.. The Gateway was very cheap and quite well made. It would have been worth the effort probably but I just did not want to mess with that much.

Then I bought an HP Pavilion n7640n and had the same issue with the digital out . During all the fooling around I opened cases with both HP and Gateway.. The support people had no idea how to make it work. They really did not understand any of it.. the techs thought I should use analog. Latest drivers did not seem to have the pass through functionality either.

Anyway, I reluctantly gave up a slot to my cheap Diamond Dolby Live card which just works. I would really rather use the onboard chipset because I really could use the slot. The HP by the way is AMD... with an ASUS motherboard. I don't remember the audio chipset but I think it is pretty much the same pieces as on the Intel mobo. Whe I get time I will take another crack at getting the on board audio to work. I can put some pressure on HP even escalate.. I just haven't had time.

I had this happen with my htpc and windows MC, as I was poking around in MC in the speaker set up section, An INTERVIDEO window appeared giving me a slection of speakers to check. I checked the speaker boxs ,front center, back ect..... and all my speakers came on........... the other slections in this window were grayed out so I could not slect 6.1 ect........ My receiver showed duplex in its window but all speakers were running working normal.

Hope this helps a little.

I had a problem where I would get 2ch PCM audio in my DVD media player when the sound device wasn't fully released by another program. I would make sure no other programs are running that might holding you audio device open (background and foreground) and see if you still have the issue.

On the image you posted, I see that you have Sonic Processing selected. Right next to it, there is the Dolby - click on it and you should be OK.

Er, no. Enabling Dolby processing in IAS is not the same as SPDIF pass through...

Well it does work for me, however my board is D975XBX2. Can you take a screenshot of the Setup Tab - in the screen that you posted, the drop down is covering part of the image. In my screen, behind the drop down, there is an image of the S/PDIF, and it says connected.

Hi,

I would like to thank mikeford, Sammy1, and pcCinema. What they were suggesting was spot on. Basically, (1) specify in audio control panel to use digital out and (2) specify in media player not to decode but to use SPDIF passthrough.

sthapit,

I have the same motherboard (Intel DG965OT), and I had the problem.

Here's what I did to get sound to all my speakers:

1. Intel Audio Studio | Setup
2. Output Mode -> 5.1 Speakers
3. Digital Ouput Mode -> Dolby Digital Live
4. Set your media player to use SPDIF.

For step4, it will depend on what media player you use. In my case, I used Media Player Classic, so I will explain for it.

Set SPDIF for Media Player Classic:
1. File | Open DVD.
2. While the movie is playing, right click on picture, Filters | AC3 Audio Decoder
3. AC3 Decoder Settings -> SPDIF
4. DTS Decoder Settings -> SPDIF
5. AAC Decoder Settings | Downmix to stereo -> uncheck
(Not sure if Step 5 makes any difference, but had it unchecked anyway.)

By default, I had the following:

AC3 Decoder Settings -> Decode to speakers: Stereo
DTS Decoder Settings -> Decode to speakers: Stereo

And that's why I could only hear in the two front speakers, but nothing in the rear speakers. My guess is that you are failing at step "4. Set your media player to use SPDIF." Looks like you are using Windows Media Center. Sorry, I'm not familiar with Media Center audio setup.

For what it's worth, I spend 2 days scratching my head over this, trying many drivers, and pulling out my hair. Hope this post helps someone.

I was am having the same problem, yet I'm running a P965 mainboard with the Realtek ALC888 chipset. Interestingly, I fixed the problem in MCE 2005 only to have it reoccur with Vista Home Premium using the same hardware.

The issue is with the Nvidia decoder not retaining the SPDIF passthrough option once you change it. If you start playback of a 5.1 capable source, then ALT-TAB and check the decoder settings, it seems like it always reverts back to it's original stereo output setting. You can change it to receiver output via SPDIF and the decoder will send the proper audio stream to your device... until you stop the video. Check the decoder box again, back to stereo...

The way I fixed this in MCE 2005 was to open a VIDEO_TS.VOB file from a ripped DVD directly through Windows Media Player without the MCE software running. You can then make changes to the Purevideo audio settings and they should stick. I'm having an unrelated problem with WMP11 on my Vista MCE box at the moment so I can't seem to solve the issue permanently on my box. I'll probably end up throwing MC Classic on just to get access to the Nvidia Decoder settings while a video is playing.

Seems stupid to me that Nvidia hasn't made a control panel aplet for their decoder that can be configured outside of a playing video stream...

I am having trouble passing through spdif on my laptop with Windows XP SP2. I am using Media Player Classic and get sound ,albeit only stero, when I don't have it set for spdif for AC3. The receiver shows this as 48kHz PCM. When I change the setting for spdif passthrough my receiver shows a dolby digital icon but isn't receiving any actual audio because when I hit display to see the signal it shows nothing. I think it must be the fault of my sound card which is the new Sound Blaster X-Fi for expresscard equipped laptops. In the console for the card their are two options for "Master Sampling Rate" and "Bit Depth" each has two different settings "48kHz", "96kHz" and "16 Bits", "24 Bits" respectively. There is no visible way to set the spdif to just passthrough data. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do?

Just wanted to add some comments to this thread. I have been following it since I too was having some problem getting my HTPC to use SPDIF pass thru. I initially set it up for bit perfect audio using ASIO for my sound library. Took a while, but got it to work. Using that setup, I can send AC3 and DTS sound to my processor and it does get decoded properly.

I then moved onto the dvd issue. Initially I got no sound at all, but did get video...I am using JRMC 12. I then loaded the CCCP pack to add the decoders etc. I was then able to get stereo sound, but no AC3 dts passthru. I fiddled with all the software after reading this thread and purely through trial and error I got it to work. I ended up going into the ffdshow settings and selecting SPDIF for AC3 and dts....presto, now I am getting DD and DTS ES from my "Gladiator" movie...sound in all 7.1 channels.

This has been a steep learning curve, gut well worth it.

So it'll send surround over the analog out, but only stereo over the digital optical (except for passthrough). What about the digital coax? Will it send surround over that? Because they make digital coax to optical converters. If not do they make analog surround to digital optical converters? My receiver only has digital optical in. Thanks.

hi i didnt want to opn a new thread but whatever

so i have my sound card set to spdif passthrough i dont hear any voices (i know that my center channel works) and i dont get dolby or dts on my receiver just pcm, what am i doing wrong??
thanks

maybe this patch will help?

Fixed same problem for me.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_dec...223-trial.html