[oro2]

I have connected my Zotac HD-ID11 to a TV with HDMI cable. The TV has 2.0 sound and not DTS (i think). I am forwarding the sound to a reciever with optical cable. The reciever supports DTS and Dolby Digital.

When I used linux, this worked, but after switching to windows it looks like i can only get 2.0 sound.
When I look at the HDMI audio device in Windows, it looks like Windows has detected that I can only use stereo audio, and no DTS or Dolby D.
If I enable DTS or Dolby Digital in XBMC, i get an error message "Cannot init. audio device" and not sound. I get sound when i disable them, but i thik it is only stereo.

How can I change the settings so that Windows "Knows" that the HDMI unit supports 5.1 sound, and DTS / Dolby Digital?

Info about my system:
Zotac HD-ID11 with Windows 7 ultimate 32-bit
LG 50PG3000 plasma TV
XBMC dharma beta 3

[LyndonW]

As long as you set the Digital, 5.1, WASAPI output in XBMC it should work no? I believe I had a similar problem with my friends tv a few months back, I ended up just buying a USB optical out device for $30 and sending the sound directly to the receiver, the tv caused too many issues trying to go through that.

[oro2]

It doesnt work with WASAPI as output device in XBMC. As long as DTS and Dolby digital is enabled, i get the error message "Cannot initialize audio device... " when i start playback.

[CrystalP]

The only way I can think of is to override the TV's EDID to make Windows think that it accepts AC3 and DTS.

That's quite involved, only attempt if you're comfortable messing with the registry, .INF files, calculating hex values, ...

LyndonW's solution is easier if you're not too technically inclined.

[craigd]

what type of receiver do you have and does the htpc have an optical output.

you're best bet is if you receiver supports hdmi to go from pc to reciver then connect receiver to the tv.

second best is htpc hdmi to tv and htpc digital to receiver.

if you need to go htpc to tv and then tv to receiver unless your tv supports dts or dolby I doubt it'll never pass through proper 5.1 even if you do hack your os to make xbmc think it will and best you can hope for is prologic II

if you do it either of the first 2 ways you need to go to settings/system/audio and select between the hdmi or spdif output settings.

[oro2]

My HTPC has optical output and my receiver (Pioneer RCS-77H) has optical in. I know that i can connect an optical cable directly, but if it possible to send the sound trough HDMI I would prefere that. The reason is that switching between audio sources on the Pioneer is not always working with my Harmony remote (have to cycle trough all inputs), and that I have to buy another cable. But I will consider this option if nothing else works. A positive effect would be that i can listen to music with my TV turned off.


This worked perfectly on the exact same hardware when i used Linux (Ubuntu 10.04). The receiver displayed the "DTS" logo and "Dolby D".

It's strange that Windows doesnt has built-in support to override the EDID, or use some kind of "passtrough mode" for the audio. I have not found this setting on my TV.

[jhsrennie]

When I used linux, this worked, but after switching to windows it looks like i can only get 2.0 sound.
When I look at the HDMI audio device in Windows, it looks like Windows has detected that I can only use stereo audio, and no DTS or Dolby D.

I'm pretty certain someone asked this question recently and it turned out to the driver. The default HDMI audio driver only allows stereo sound. The fix was to use the latest driver from the NVidia web site.

JR

[craigd]

that's a good point ion hdmi audio driver is seperate and not always obvious on the nvidia site make sure it is installed

[SimonC]

Here was a pretty informative thread on your problem over at AVS:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1280205

I am also connecting HDMI > TV then TV > Receiver (via optical cable). I can play DTS audio without issue. Running a 5770 ATI with Cat 10.9A drivers. Windows however only shows 2 channel on the HDMI with no option to change it. Bitstreaming DD/DTS content via MPC and ffdshow is also not an issue.

[Ranger Rob]

I have the exact same problem on certain files and it is not a TV issue or a driver issue. My HTPC is plugged into my kind of high end receiver and all my drivers are up to date.

Oro2's 'fix' worked for me as well. By turning off DTS and Dolby it worked. Yeah it was stereo, but it worked. Does anyone have any idea what we need to do to get 5.1 sound?

My HTPC:

ZOTAC GF9300-G-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
Intel Pentium E5300 Wolfdale 2.6GHz

Plugged via HDMI into a:

YAMAHA RX-Z7BL 7.1-Channel Digital Home Theater Receiver

The file I am trying to play is:

General
Complete name : \\MEDIASERVER\Movies\Movies S\Shutter Island (2010)\Shutter Island (2010).mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 6.56 GiB
Duration : 2h 18mn
Overall bit rate : 6 799 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-05-16 06:08:34
Writing application : mkvmerge v3.2.0 ('Beginnings') built on Feb 12 2010 16:46:17
Writing library : libebml v0.7.9 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 12 frames
Muxing mode : Container [email protected]
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 18mn
Bit rate : 5 288 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 544 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.317
Stream size : 4.97 GiB (76%)
Title : x264_L4.1 @ 5288 Kbps
Writing library : x264 core 84 r1400M 20fa784
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=12 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.9:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=64 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-4 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=5288 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.90 / pulldown=0 / nal_hrd=0
Language : English

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2h 18mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 1.46 GiB (22%)
Title : English DTS 5.1 @ 1.5 Mbps
Language : English

Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title : English SDH
Language : English

[Ranger Rob]

I am using XBMC as a front end but it looks like a PC issue with the HDMI sound and not XBMC related. According to my control panel HDMI sound is not even an option (it is...stereo sound and video are working fine through the HDMI port). It works in stereo if I turn off DTS in XBMC, but I can't figure how to get 5.1 sound working. Any ideas of what to try now?

Image deleted. New image below.

[steelman1991]

Why is your driver information for ATI, when you have an Nvidia Graphics Card? or am I completely missing the point?. Shouldn't theat show an Nvidia High Def audio device. I'd be inclined to reinstall the driver.

[Ranger Rob]

My bad. The previous image was from a different computer. I was remote desktoped into a different one when I looked in the control panel. Don't I feel stupid.

Here is what the sound control panel looks like in the one that can't product 5.1 sound:

[steelman1991]

Ranger there is still no HDMI Nvidia graphics driver information there. Install the correct drivers and see what happens.

[Ranger Rob]

I did.

I installed the latest nvidia HD sound drivers from Zotac's website and that is still how it looks.

They are right here: http://www.zotacusa.com/downloads/?cat=116