WRC Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 HI All, I have what might be a trivial problem, which I am hoping someone can help me with. I am in the process of building a Media PC based on WinXP, everything is working perfect except I can not get 5.1 surround sound to work from DVD (Genuine Retail DVD) or HDTV . My spec's are listed below, I have AC-3 loaded on the machine and work's perfect for any Divx movies. HP P4 - 2.8GHz Slim Case 1GB DDR400 RAM 320GB HDD 5.1 Logitech x-530 Compro T200a HDTV Slim Card AOPEN COBRA AW-870LP 7.1 CHANNEL PCI SOUND CARD LG 16x DVD-RW DVDRW Black Cheers WRC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mjr69 Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 Are you getting nothing or stereo? Have you checked if that the particular DVDs you are trying request that you go to the audio menu to select 5.1 prior to playing? Are they DTS? On your player eg PowerDVD etc... have you selected 5.1 as output? Do you use say Windows Media Player for Xvid and PowerDVD for DVDs? It sounds like (as you said) something little that has been overlooked... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WRC Posted January 29, 2007 Author Share Posted January 29, 2007 Are you getting nothing or stereo? Have you checked if that the particular DVDs you are trying request that you go to the audio menu to select 5.1 prior to playing? Are they DTS? On your player eg PowerDVD etc... have you selected 5.1 as output? Do you use say Windows Media Player for Xvid and PowerDVD for DVDs? It sounds like (as you said) something little that has been overlooked... Thanks for the reply I am getting Stereo from the front left and right, nothing from the centre, sub, or left/right rears. Yes the DVD's I am using are Dolby Digital. What if they are DTS? I am using ComproDVD and yes I have selected "Surround Sound" I checked with Media Player, its the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RezoN_8 Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 I may be wrong (and often am) but I am sure that the optical drives in PCs supply the sound to the MB via a simple 3 wire L + R + common earth, not as a digital signal, which would be required for DD or DTS. Unless your drive had a digital "out" and MB a digital "in" you may be out of luck. As DivX files are encoded with 5.1 surround they should play OK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakes Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 I may be wrong (and often am) but I am sure that the optical drives in PCs supply the sound to the MB via a simple 3 wire L + R + common earth, not as a digital signal, which would be required for DD or DTS. Unless your drive had a digital "out" and MB a digital "in" you may be out of luck. As DivX files are encoded with 5.1 surround they should play OK. No, this isn't correct. It's quite possible to get DD or DTS via spdif frpm a PC optical drive playing a DVD. WRC, look in your DVD player options for something like 'enable dolby digital passthrough' or similar. You just want the software to pass the digital stream through your receiver/processor, not decode it, so you need to make sure it's doing that before it will work. This is likely to be in the audio (or maybe advanced audio) options Actually, it might be a limitation of the DVD player that you're using. I've just found a manual for ComproDVD and it said that that version was limited to 2 channel output. This might be the same with the version that you're using. Did the software come with your optical drive. It's possible that if it's oem software, it doesn't have all the features that you'd want. Try downloading VLC and see if you can get DD output with that. (BTW, you might get more useful feedback if you post HTPC issues in the Digital TV Tuner Cards section of the forum.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sold Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 WRC, look in your DVD player options for something like 'enable dolby digital passthrough' or similar. You just want the software to pass the digital stream through your receiver/processor, not decode it, so you need to make sure it's doing that before it will work. WRC mentioned they were using the Logitech X-530s, which use an analogue connection so you need to decode it either at the software or sound card level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WRC Posted January 29, 2007 Author Share Posted January 29, 2007 (BTW, you might get more useful feedback if you post HTPC issues in the Digital TV Tuner Cards section of the forum.) Sorry I thought it was a surround sound issue, My Bad! I've just found a manual for ComproDVD and it said that that version was limited to 2 channel output. This might be the same with the version that you're using. Correct! I loaded Media Player 11 and it played surround sound but died after about 10 seconds, I am going to do a clean install of v11. WRC mentioned they were using the Logitech X-530s, which use an analogue connection so you need to decode it either at the software or sound card level. Correct! BUT I still can not get surround sound from ComproDTV on a HD channel, could this be a transmitting issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sold Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 BUT I still can not get surround sound from ComproDTV on a HD channel, could this be a transmitting issue? Last time I was using it ComproDTV didn't support 5.1 (or possibly even DD full stop, not exactly sure). You may need to look into some alternative software and use a different decoder, something like GB-PVR, Media Portal, etc. if you want surround sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakes Posted January 29, 2007 Share Posted January 29, 2007 Okay, sorry, I didn't realise you were using the analogue outputs. As sold says, you'll probably need DVD decoder software, which will decode the dolby digital stream for you. You could use GBPVR or Media Portal, but these are fully fledged HTPC frontends (and I'm not sure that GBPVR comes with a decoder built in). If all you want to do is play DVDs in Windows Media player you can just install a decoder. Maybe look for the NVIDIA purevideo decoder, or buy something like PowerDVD which comes with a decoder. If you don't want to pay money, I'm pretty sure some of the free codecs can do what you need. Have a look at FFDShow, it has many, many options and it can probably decode dolby digital (although I'm not 100% sure about this it's a while since I used it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Bitey Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 For DVD's - Get the powerdvd trial. Load it up. Enjoy your movies. Once youve got it working - then experiment with more exotic players/decoders etc. Unless your audio-out has 5 individual outputs (left/right/center/rear right/rear left and poss subwoofer) and your connecting that to your speakers/amp then your only going to get dolby pro-logic (at best) through a stereo connection. You also need to make sure your dvd player software is decoding the audio on the dvd to Dolby Digital. You can only get away with not decoding the signal if your passing it via spdif to a amplifier/reciever which is capable of decoding it. Bitey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakes Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 For DVD's - Get the powerdvd trial.Load it up. Enjoy your movies. This does seem like the most straightforward way of achieving what you want to. Quick question, Bitey: What happens when the powerdvd trial expires? Is is still possible to watch dvds using the powerdvd codecs with another application, or is it then necessary to register powerdvd? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Bitey Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 It'd be unethical for me to say otherwise.. but im that kind of guy Let me answer your question with a question: If you dont run the application then how can it expire? This might have been fixed in the later releases. There are various ways to extend your trial.. such as buying the product :-) www.cracks4u.us www.ddl2.com www.freeserials.com Oh look.. something has accidently pasted into the message. There we go, crossed out now.. all legit again. I use zoomplayer myself for my HTPC... (see sig) but powerdvd works pretty good. Bitey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WRC Posted January 31, 2007 Author Share Posted January 31, 2007 Thanks guys, PowerDVD worked perfect, all I need is HIP installed so I can use my Compro remote to controll PowerDVD. Also I reloaded ComproHDTV, and I can get 5.1 to work on the 7 HD loop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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