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[park]

I am having an issue with my Sony VAIO TP-1 HTPC. It is linked up to my Denon 2920 Receiver via HDMI, which in turn sends the video to the TV through HDMI. The HDMI uses an intel driver and so I guess that it's integrated on the motherboard. No matter how I tweak the settings in ffdshow, MC, or on the windows sound properties, I am only getting stereo output at the reciever.

After searching the net a bit I found this very informative post. Basically it says that the denon is idetifying itself to the intel hdmi driver incorrectly and so the intel driver just thinks it's a stereo TV and outputs a stereo signal. I tried to update my intel drivers, but was warned that the computer uses Sony customized drivers and there might be issues. When I attempted to update anyway the installer quit every time telling me that the driver was incompatible with that hardware.

My question is, is there a way to force the output of a file's number of channels through the intel audio drive?. On another site I saw mention of a feature in VLC that can force 5.1 channel ac3 sound through the hdmi output. Are there any audio pros out there that can advise me on what I need to do?

[JimH]

My question is, is there a way to force the output of a file's number of channels through the intel audio drive?. On another site I saw mention of a feature in VLC that can force 5.1 channel ac3 sound through the hdmi output. Are there any audio pros out there that can advise me on what I need to do?

I don't think that's quite right.  What you want to do is pass an unaltered bitstream to the receiver, where it should be decoded.

No DSP should be applied in the PC.

Our wiki has a Surround Sound article that Matt wrote.

[park]

I see. So there is no way, using kernal streaming or something like that, to force the audio driver to output a certain number of channels? At the moment it would seem that the audio driver is thinking that it can only output stereo because it doesnt recognise the reciever properly. I am hoping that the answer to all this isnt "buy a new reciever".

[JimH]

No.  If you were able to "force the audio driver" on the PC, it would defeat what you're doing.  The speakers are attached to the receiver.  It's there that the audio stream should be split.  If you do it on the PC, you'll pass the receiver a signal it won't understand.

The PC must pass an unaltered stream to the receiver.

Here's the article:
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Surround_Sound

[fitbrit]

I'm not sure, but Jim may be leading you down a different path than one you need. Fact is, that if you're outputting as LPCM, you can decode whatever you want in your PC and your receiver should be able to play the audio - as long as it handles LPCM.
What is much more likely here is an EDID issue. What this means is that your receiver is not telling the PC that it's capable of multichannel audio. Instead, it may be passing on only the stereo capabilities of the TV to your card. There are many threads on this issue at AVS forum. Here's one.

There is a way around these issues, but you'll have to search on AVS forum's EDID threads until you understand what needs to be done, what files output from which programs you'll need to edit and present back to your PC. Good luck!

[park]

Yes fitbrit, that is the point I was trying to make but after searching various forums for my denon model number nothing was coming up. I didn't think to seaech for the term "EDID". Thanks a lot for the info and the link. You've given me a new avenue to explore. I will do some research and see if i can fix the problem. DVI detective seems hopeful.