Does anyone get true surround sound (5.1)?

[homepc]

Does anyone get true surround sound from a computer to the reciever using spdif? If so, what is your setup? Hardware?

I have a Turtle Beach Riviera sound card and an ONKYO SR600 receiver. Is it possible?

thanks
Ray

[PhilB]

I used to using the optical output into a surround sound reciever. In fact it just died and I posted the same question. See this one.....viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6122.....28 views, no answers.

[jowaldo]

I've done it with multiple computers.. all worked fine... I've used a realtek soundcard built into an old motherboard I had, and also with a SB Live value, sb live audigy and most recently a SB Live audigy SE 7.1 that I got here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102003

I had a Denon avr2800 but just upgraded to a Onkyo TX-SR805... it should be here in just a few days

[PhilB]

That is bascially what I did, optical to an external surround sound reciever. It would be really interesting to go from the audion card to the speakers if high end audio is not a requirement. Zone control from XL of the surround sound pc card would be ideal.

[defrag]

Simply? Yes!

Creative cards suck at home theatre AFAIK. In my main work PC I have a X-Fi Elite Pro which sucks at optical out, so I went down the route of the Auzentech DTS cards for my HTPC, these not only provide true optical out but also encode to Dolby Digital and DTS any stereo output. Have a look at the review here. I love the fact that my music fills the lounge rather than just a stereo output.

Anyway, for films, AVI's etc I always pass everything optically through to my AV receiver which picks up the correct DDL/DTS/Stereo signal (It has a display to tell me what it is getting) This also means ensuring your codecs are also set for SPDIF - especially FFDShow (which is in the Audio settings)

[sdumas]

In my opinion, it is best to let your receiver do the decoding job.

Any SPDIF output from your PC will do. The signal will travel unaltered from your source to your receiver where it will receive the proper attention; that's the beauty of SPDIF - it is just a passthrough. It is also easier to control and adjust volume from a receiver than from a PC, I find.

I am using two different environments; one with a Denon 3802 and one with a HarmanKardon AVR247. Both receive a signal from a SPDIF output from a HTPC (2 x HTPCs actually).

The only thing I have not been able to do yet (and this is the imperative word, yet...) is to get Dolby TrueHD through. PowerDVD will not let this one passthrough - something about bandwidth over SPDIF. It would seem that the only way to get Dolby TrueHD is with HDMI 1.3. So no HDMI output from a PC yet as far as I know and there are VERY few receiver that can do HDMI 1.3 at this point.

Good luck

[PhilB]

Ok so it looks like SPDIF to an amp is still the best way. I was doing that before my lousy Sony DVD/Amp died. I would like to use an all in one DVD player/amp. Anybody have a recommendation?

Thanks,
PB