Need help taking 5.1 from DVR to 2.0 on PC

Hopefully this is the right area for this question.


OK, I want to run the audio from my Dish 622 HD DVR to my PC. I've searched through this forum and on Google and haven't had much luck finding anything. I don't care about the video - I use my PC as my audio control and have an HDMI cable going to my Sharp LCD. The HDTV doesn't have great speakers so I just use the 2.1 speaker setup connected to my PC. My soundcard is a stock Audigy 4 with no optical input. I purchased a Creative digital I/O module that takes in a optical cable and connects to the soundcard via a 3.5mm jack but that didn't work. All I hear is static so I'm assuming my computer is not decoding the DD signal in the optical cable. I have a really old receiver that decodes DD/DTS so I tried running opticals from the DVR to the receiver and then the receiver to the digital I/O module and it still doesn't work. If the television show is broadcast in 2.0 audio, then it works, otherwise it is just static. I've played with the setup on the DVR (DD/PCM, DD only, PCM only) and nothing works. I haven't found a way to tell the DVR to output 2.0 and I don't believe there is a way to do that. I've also tried taking the optical cable directly from the TV to the digital I/O module and get the same result. I think this is because the audio is coming in to the TV via HDMI so for some reason, you can't use an optical out. The TV does not have an optical input, only an optical output, otherwise that may have worked.


I don't want to use RCA cables because I want to enjoy digital sound.


So, does anyone have a thought on how I can do this? Ideally, I'd like to downmix the 5.1 signal to 2.0, but I don't know if that is possible. Is the best option to purchase a different soundcard that has a digital optical input and DD decoding? If so, any ideas on which one? Any other options? Thanks for any help.