Stereo Sound to Rear Speakers Only / Dolby Digital

Just purchased a Toshiba 40S51U LCD TV.  Having an issue with the sound when connected to a receiver via the optical out. 
I think the issue is as follows:  When the program (ie local news) or commercial is broadcast in stereo, the sound is sent only to the surround (rear) speakers.  Sound is great (surround works just fine) when watching a show.  Assuming the shows are broadcasting 5.1 sound, local news only 2.0. 
Signal is over-the-air. 
I can switch the sound output to PCM and get reasonable sound for everything, but obviously lose the surround sound.  Would like to keep the system in Dolby Digital (AUTO) all the time. 
Thanks,
Rob
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Me again -- I'm an idiot and the TV was just fine. 
My receiver was set to a non-connected set of speakers -- not sure why anything was working!  I changed the speakers to the set actually connected and everything seems to be working OK now.  The optical out on the TV was likely never an issue. 
Rob

Similar Messages

  • Sound Blaster able to encode Dolby Digital 5.1 and abo

    Hi there.
    I recently buy a new motherboard without dolby digital encoding onboard (the older, nForce2 (asus a7n8x deluxe had that capability, the new one, doesnt, it is an asus a8n-sli premium)
    I use the coaxial digital out to connect my computer to the home theatre with only one cable (that rules), also, enabling "cloning" allow me to listen using at least 4 speakers, instead of the two front ones.
    Someone told me to buying a "cheap" sound blaster will do the trick.
    My options are (from cheap to expensi've):
    CREATIVE AUDIGY SE SB0570 OEM
    CREATIVE AUDIGY SE SB0570 BOX
    CREATIVE AUDIGY2 VALUE
    CREATIVE S.BLASTER X-FI PLATINUM
    CREATIVE S.BLASTER X-FI XTREME
    For me, the best option is the SB0570 BOX. The Audigy2 VALUE have 2.5 times the price of it.
    What do you recommend?
    Thanks in advance!
    Fa

    Analog to Digital Conversion is exactly that: It translates the Analog input signal of eg. a microphone into a PCM digital signal, with 24-bit precision. That is essentially the Line-IN and the Microphone input. (Although for the microphone they tend to have lower precision but amplify the signal).
    There is a sticky at the top of this forum which you should read to understand the difference between the various digital formats.
    To make it clear: The Sound Blasters have an SPDIF output which can send digital signals. However it does not have a Dolby Digital compression engine, so it will either send uncompressed PCM signals if it has processed them before. If you have a source that is already in Dolby Digital then you can redirect it through the SPDIF output and get full surround sound. This ONLY happens on DVDs, because they come precompressed.
    Everything that gets processed on the soundcard is outputted as PCM digital: For 6-channel audio there are 3 connections which end up on 3 DACs (Digital to Analog Converter) where the digital signal is then made into analog for the speakers to be able to play it. The SPDIF connection simply bypasses the DACs (the DACs of the receiver are used) but takes only connection, that of the front speakers.
    Dolby Digital AC-3 is a compression mechanism, which compresses sound (much like mp3), so that it can fit in only one connection, where uncompressed only a stereo signal would pass. (In doing so, it also lowers quality!)
    So: If you want to use a 7. speaker system with a Sound Blaster you have to go analog, which also means 3 cables (because they have 3 wires for the channels + ground). And I don't think Dolby or DTS supports more than 5. channels for the time being, so not even with Dolby Encoding onboard could you do it with one cable.

  • Soft sound from rear speakers while playing mov

    Hi,?Gaming and music is done via all speakers (i'm using analogue connection) just fine, but when i play a movie (using powerdvd 6?deluxe) i get faint sounds from the rear speakers. I had contact with creative's help desk in my country and we ran thru all system settings (e.g. thnx console). Everything was configured correctly., tho still a weak sound from rear speakers. They could not help me further ?I'm using a x-fi fatality soundcard with a logitech z-5400 speakerset.
    When running a movie it shows a logo near the system tray : dolby digital. I am hoping one of u has a solution to this problem. Greetz,?Nask

    In most of the cases, movies with mutichannel soundtrack do not use constantly every speakers. I think your case is normal and that's only your DVD's mix (as many DVD) that concentrates more on the front. try some of the sample there: http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/do...s/trailers.phpIf the first one sound at the same level for each speakers then it's alright.

  • No Sound on Rear Speakers

    I have a new Lenovo H420and I am unable to get sound from the 2nd set of rear speakers when using a media player.
    The OS  is Windows 7 Home 64 bit and I have put in all new drivers for the Realtek HD Audio. When I run the Lenovo HD Audio Manager the system shows stereo or quadrophonic or 5.1 speakers. Stereo is fine and plays back on the front speakers. And when set to 4 speakers, the Audio Manager playback tests successfully on all 4 speakers. It does this also for the Windows speaker configuration.
    But running Windows media player or VLC player will only play sounds on the front channel. I am unable to find any information from Lenovo, Realtek or Microsoft about this problem, but I can find lots of other people with a similar issue.
    Any suggestions for a solution?
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    This problem with no sound on rear speakers has taken up far more time than I ever expected. I have un-installed and re-installed drivers and assorted  audio applications in an an attempt to resolve it. Internet research found many other people with the same frustrating problem with Realtek Audio and Windows 7. There seemed to be no one who had found a good answer.
    HERE IS THE SOLUTION!
    > Run the Realtek Audio Manager (aka Lenovo HD auido Manager)  found in the control panel programs.
    > Click Advanced button on right panel
    > Set  Speaker Configuration to Quadraphonic
    > Click the Test button or click on the individual speakers. You should hear sound from all the speakers except for the center channel and subwoofer. This proves there is a signal for the front and rear speakers. The problem is that when running applications there is no sound on the rear speakers.
    > Click Sound Effects tab, change the Environment  from <none> to Room.   There should now be an audio signal for the rear speakers!
    Why this is not explained anywhere on Realtek help or anywhere else on the internet is a mystery. But at least this is an easy if baffling fix. I believe that the Realtek Audio codex wants to process all sound through some kind of effects and delay engine. There doesn't seem to be any Fade control for Front and Rear. There is a Loudness Equalization that I also clicked that does some voluime adjustment but not much. The Rear speakers will not play for many of the odd  Environments, I found Room, Auditorium, and Concert Hall to be acceptable. Perhaps others like Sewer Pipe may be suitable for games. Most are just silly noise effects.
    The equalizer has some useful qualities and can adjust the bass/treble audio to suit music. The Live was the best for my speakers which are Logitech. The sub-woofer may need some adjustment depending on the carpets or tile in the room.
    Hope this helps someone to resolve this wierd audio problem.

  • Audigy 2 ZS/Lost sound Output Rear speakers 5.1(line out

    I seem to have no output on lineout #2. Can switch speaker plugs to line or 3 and then get sound from rear speakers.
    I believe i might have something wrong with card,It's set for 5.,only frt.lft & rt center,sub seem to work.Any Ideas out there?
    Thanks in advance! Windows XP SP-2
    P4-2.4OC'd to 3.4// 4-20 gig HDD's Raid 0//Rocket raid 640 pci card//2 Gigs PC4000///audigy 2 ZS//MSI 865 Neo-2 Platinum//
    NEC 3500 DVD & TDK 880 GDVD Burners//Gainward golden Sample FX5700 UltraMessage Edited by Biggunn on 05-25-2005 :3 PM

    OK , Perhaps i didnt Say this at first But, My speakers,souncard,etc. all Were working fine previously. Just This Past week or so i have lost sound to my rear speakers. The speakers i am using are logitech Z-5500's. As i stated earlier, i can switch speaker connections at soundcard and get sound from the rear speakers. I have tried these speakers on another computer(audigy LS card) and they work on that one without any problems. I have tried the speaker settings console where it shows you a diagram of 5. layout and sound coming from each speaker as it goes around the diagram,it is showing sound symbol for rear speakers but, no sound out of speakers in rear. The creative diagnostics has been run and everything passes in it and shows no problems.

  • Why no sound from rear speakers (Xfi X

    Vista 32bit, CMSS enabled, why no sound from rear speakers with music? XP no problem at all, only in Vista. Using latest drivers (v2.5.0004).
    I realize I'm hoping against hope to get a useful answer at the Creative forums, but I do believe in miracles and the odd one happening once or twice in a lifetime, lol.

    Well, I think I have an answer, from Catherina-CL's Audio in Windows Vista post. 2.The Vista audio architecture changes the way per-stream audio processing works, which required us to write new software to support this
    Issues that may be encountered:
    CMSS no longer works on audio streams from the OS.
    Status:
    Features based on Windows XP architecture must be rewritten to conform to the new Vista architecture, and we have a team of software engineers, project managers and testers dedicated to this task in order to provide our customers the same seamless audio experience under Windows Vista that they enjoyed under Windows XP. However, I found a somewhat crappy solution, at least with my old Altec Lansing 4 speaker/ subwoofer system. Unplug the surround cable from your subwoofer (unplugging it from the card itself has no effect). That at least will make all the speakers work, even if it's not true surround. Good for listening to music loud.

  • No sound in rear speakers with Sound Blaster Li

    I have a Sound Blaster Li've sound card.. In win98 with older drivers it was possible to set the card to 5., but now (in winXP and newest drivers) there are these thrre optins: headphones, 2 speakers and 4 speakers... I use digital output and I have 5. speakers. I can li've with only 4 speakers but it does not work very good.
    When i press the test button i hear the front left voice and the front right voice correctly in the front speakers, but i hear both voices in both rear speakers. But then the test is supposed to say rear left and rear right, but there is no sound. My receiver is a Harman/Kardon AVR 550 and is set to dolby pro logic and 5. speakers.
    How do I solve the problem!

    All,
    Are you using the Li'veDrvUniPack from our website or using the default Windows Driver? If you are using the default driver then there will be limitations. You will need to install the complete Li'veDrvUni-Pack from our downloads section to get 5. if you have a Li've! 5. card.
    Jeremy

  • No sound from rear speakers on my Inspire 5500, all I get is a hissing sound! :(

    Hi ppl, im new ere.
    I just bought a Surround sound, i put it together, play music, and thers no sound from my rear speakers. its the same when i play a game and look at a DVD (which DO support 5.1 sound)
    I already made sure all the connections in the amp and subwoofer are in properly and they are...
    And I also know that it cudnt be my sound card because it also supports 8.1 and im only trying to use a 5.1.
    Please help someone....
    All help is greatly appreciated
    Dave

    Hi Dave,
    First things first. For music and games (and the speaker test in Windows), what you're experiencing is normal. A digital connection like coaxial or optical SPDIF can only pass over either an encoded stream (like AC3 on DVDs), or a stereo PCM signal. If you're playing music/games, the sound is not an AC3 stream, but essentially several stereo signals. The connection simply cannot pass this over. For more detail, read this forum thread and this knowledgebase article. You can turn on the upmix function on the decoder to give sound out of more speakers, but this is an effect, so you will not get the positional sound out of games for instance.
    For DVDs however, this should work perfectly, as you are sending an unprocessed AC3 stream from the system directly to your speakers. All you need to do is adjust the settings and it should work fine. Make sure the DVD software's audio option is set to SPDIF/bypass, rather than 5.1. Choosing 5.1 in the software will make it decode the signal rather than pass it through. Then check the settings for the card and it should work.
    Cat

  • Sound from front speakers only

    I am using optical audio with Sony DAV-DZ810 home theater and my Apple TV2. The system is new and I am not very familiar. When I watch a trailor (have not watched a movie yet) on ATV2, I notice that sound only comes from two front speakers only. No sound is heard from center and rear speakers.
    Can anyone please advise?

    Normal.
    Trailers do not usually have 5.1 surround.
    Not all movies have 5.1 surround either - it should say or show the dolby icon on the movie preview screen and once you choose to rent it often says you are renting film x which has surround surround (or something like that).
    AC

  • Sound from REAR speakers o

    Hi,
    I have a SB Audigy 4 and a Cambridge SW 5. speaker system running on Windows XP SP2. I recently re-OSd my system and everything was working fine. I was in the middle of a web-cam call and all of a sudden the sound disappeared. I have a Logitech QuickCam, and I understand that its software can interfere with the surround speakers (usually by disabling the rear speakers). Anyways I unistalled all the Logitech software, but still no sound.
    I uninstalled and reinstalled my Creative drivers multiple times, and all I can get is sound out of the rear speakers. Nothing out of the front or centre speakers. The AudioHQ speaker test only has sound coming out of the rear. Also, when I play music (e.g. mp3s) it comes out of the rear speakers as well (I thought this was odd as usually stereo sound comes out of the front speakers doesn't it's)
    Anyways I've tried switiching the front and rear speakers, and the front speakers work out of the rear channel, so it's not that. I don't know what else to try. I've checked all the connections, etc and nothing. Anyone have any ideas?
    Thanks

    Have you checked that the cables are mounted OK (i.e. is cabling OK in speaker system ... try by using stereo connection for every pair at once ... connect rear channel cable(s) into X-Fi front output ... connect center/sub into front output) ... are these OK.
    Propably you could switch those rear/cent-sub cables as a temp. solution but, would it be a resolution ... well, it's up to you?
    Are your sources stereo (i.e. you need to use CMSS to convert stereo signal to multichannel)?
    BTW, I had similiar issue in my Audigy 2 card before latest driver update.
    jutapaMessage Edited by jutapa on 06-06-200703:24 PM

  • Get Sound From Rear Speakers with X-Fi XtremeMusic card

    Have the SB X-Fi XtremeMusic soundcard combined with the Digital I/O Module so i can get digital sound through my 6. Sony Amp. I have the Digital I/O module connected to my amp via a Coaxial cable. I have set the speaker set up to 6., and have run the channel test in the Creative Console Launcher. Now heres the problem im having, i get the correct sounds coming from the front left, center, and right speakers, but when it tests the rear left speaker, the sound comes from the front left instead on the rear left, for the center rear the sound comes from the front center, and for the right rear the sound comes from the front right speaker. Can someone tell me how i get the correct sound come from the rear speakers please?

    The Xbox encodes the sound on the fly to form a DD stream. No PC game encodes DD by itself, even when the game is DD certified it needs a soundcard capable of encoding it, like the soundstorm on the nforce2. If your receiver supports analog inputs use them, the DD compression would probably degrade the sound at least to the same degree than an analog connection.

  • Xi-Fi: No sound from rear speakers in Vi

    Hey everybody, I am not hearing any sound from my rear speakers (I have a 5. setup) in Windows Vista. I have of course updated to the latest Vista driver for the Xi-Fi card, all of my connections are correctly set up on my hardware, and I have made sure that I have 5. Speakers selected in the Xi-Fi Volume Panel.
    The strange thing is, if I go into the Windows Sound panel from the Control Panel and do a test from there, I *do* hear sound from my rear speakers, however this is the only time I can hear it, not while listening to music, watching movies, or playing games.
    If anyone can help me with this problem I'd be deeply appreciati've. Thanks!

    Unfortunately, I have gone through 2 SoundBlaster cards on my Vista machine and am _still_ having this same issue. On my XP machine everything worked great with my Audigy 2 card... once I upgraded to Vista, nadda (and not to mention all the cool features & software that worked on XP didn't work in Vista)... so I upgraded to an X-Fi Fatalty Platinum card after reading on the Creative website that most functionality had returned with the new drivers (including CMSS supposedly). While some of the software is now available, the whole reason I upgraded my card was so that CMSS would work!
    Like everyone else, I have CMSS enabled and when I do the speaker test in Windows & Creative Audio Console, I hear test tones from the rear speakers. However, when I listen to music or do anything else involving audio, I get nothing from the rears (unless I turn on one of the effects which I don't want as they mess with the sound too much - and even then, I only hear a slight reverby effect from the rears on certain effects). I am extremely disappointed that I spent a lot of money (much more than most good soundcards) and STILL HAVE NO REAR SOUND!
    Also, is anyone getting a warning when opening the Sound options in Windows Control Panel? This is what I am getting:
    http://www.snapdri've.net/files/56394/AudioEnhancements.JPG
    Which tells me that something isn't right... I am hoping it is due to remnants of my audigy drivers... this is the only reason I have a glint of hope - and this: after googling this issue, I did find another forum discussing the same issue and one person was actually able to resolve it... here was his solution:
    "I uninstalled the drivers for the third time, but this time went into my creative folder and deleted all of the audio console files and what not that there was NOT an uninstaller for. I then rebooted. I redownloaded and reinstalled the latest drivers from the website. I rebooted again. I then downloaded the latest vista audio console launcher and installed it. I then rebooted again. I turned some music on and the CMSS works now! And it sound SO much better! IT EVEN GAVE ME MY MIC OPTIONS BACK. The only thing I can think of was that I had an old XP version of the audio console, and thats why the CMSS didn't work, and it took away my mic options."
    If anyone does resolve this issue, PLEASE POST YOUR SOLUTION HERE! Thanks - it would be much appreciated and would surely be helping out many others with the same frustrating problem.

  • No sound from Rear Speakers - Center Channel Works F

    I have a Windows Vista (brand new) system, with an X-Fi XtremeMusic card on board. Connected via the digital i/o dongle is an Onkyo TX SR-605 receiver, which in turn is hooked up to a 5. Polk Audio speaker setup. The 5. setup works fine?for all other components on the receiver. That said, it doesn't seem that there's much or any sound coming from the rear speakers when it's playing the computer setup. When I use the THX speaker setup utility it correctly identifies the right, left, center, and sub, but then announces that the front right and left speakers are the rear right and left speakers. Any idea how to fix this?

    All the sudden I got the similar problem with Logitech Z-5500 with optical out...test with THX Consol and no sound coming out of rear Speakers instead front R and L.......update to latest driver but problem remains....

  • Muffled sound from rear speakers (t7700)

    I hooked up new T7700 speaker set up to my new Audigy 2 ZS Gamer and when i watch movies or play games i hear nothing from my rear speakers. if i put my ear right by them then i hear that there is sound coming from them but very quietly.
    side front and center work fine any ideas?

    That would be normal for a 5.1 system, rear is very discrete.
    Use the speaker test and you should hear the level increase. or use cmss to play cd music to back 2 speakers.
    [edit] sorry didnt see the bit with side speakers.
    Select 5.1 instead of 7.1
    if you still want to use 7.1 then check the settings in the decoder bit and look at where you are mapping the speakers to. like in a 7.1 speaker configuration map 5.1 content to etc\
    For 5.1 movies use the rear mapping, or the side mapping,
    if you want all the speakers on then select the side and rear option then whatever sound you get from the speakers will be a bonus.
    Message Edited by dontasciime on 01-20-2005 10:06 AM

  • No sound on rear speakers (X-

    ok I just upgraded from my old soundblaster li've! 5. and im having a few problems so far. first the rear speakers wont work when playing from windows media player, itunes etc (they work with 5. content though) i tried the cmss 3D thing but it doesnt do anything at all, i dont see any change in the sound.
    i have
    windows XP sp2
    AMD Athlon X2
    nvidia 6800 gs
    what could I be doing wrong? it worked fine with my old card

    osmel wrote:
    ok I just upgraded from my old soundblaster li've! 5. and im having a few problems so far. first the rear speakers wont work when playing from windows media player, itunes etc (they work with 5. content though) i tried the cmss 3D thing but it doesnt do anything at all, i dont see any change in the sound.
    i have
    windows XP sp2
    AMD Athlon X2
    nvidia 6800 gs
    what could I be doing wrong? it worked fine with my old card
    Maybe there is something to learn first .
    I have not the catd, but IIRC --> on creation mode --> route the output to front and rear.
    jutapa

Maybe you are looking for