5.1 audio pass through

[Gman86]

hi all, i have just got myself a new sound card with an optical output to use with my av receiver, however it seems that the optical part of the card only supports 2 channel audio can anybody help me with getting true surround sound DD or DTS i mainly wish to use it with kodi. Please help thanks in advance.

 

[boosted1g]

Your source has to have 5.1 audio otherwise it will come out as 2.0.
So if you are watching youtube it is going to be 2.0.

Your PC needs to be set to 5.1 in the windows (and/or realtek) control panel.
Kodi needs to be set to enable passthru, passthru set to toslink adapter, and all the DTS/AC3/Dolby Tuners enabled.
Kodi needs to have 5.1 setup for downmix, and set to toslink adapter

 

[Gman86]

yes alot of my movie collection is 5.1 and i understand about the sources and have adjusted the settings on kodi to the new optical output, however the audio manager for the sound card only shows 2 channels front left and right whilst using the optical output dose that mean i cant pass through a 5.1 signal?
thanks for your replies

 

[boosted1g]

You need to change windows audio settings to 5.1 as well.

Is there a reason why you are not just using HDMI for both video and audio from PC to receiver?

 

[Gman86]

my av receiver is rather old and does not have hdmi 🙁
how do i change the windows settings?
on my sound card manager i don't seem to have an option to change the channel output via optical unless i use the 3,5mm jack plugs

 

[J_E_D_70]

Which sound card exactly?

 

[Gman86]

csl 7.1 sound card. https://www.amazon.co.uk/CSL-8-channel-surround-Toslink-Optical/dp/B00NNQ9SQA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467071252&sr=8-1&keywords=csl+7.1

 

[J_E_D_70]

Hm - you say the receiver is old - does it have dolby digital or the older pro logic decoder - or DTS ?

 

[Gman86]

it has Dolby digital and Dts surround. I use it with my ps3 via optical and i get true surround whilst i use that it has a blue light that comes on whilst it decodes DD or DTS. it can use pro logic to upscale but i don't think that is true surround sound

 

[J_E_D_70]

Sounds like it should work. On phone so can't try to walk thru windows sound settings. Keep looking...

 

[jagged_man_inc]

Sure u can ,, Optical supports dd and dts . and my audio only shows 2 channel in windows....
So what i did with my kodi ,,,, First in the audio output in kodi , put the setting level to expert ...
audio output , you optical device
number of channels 2
output configuration , best match
stero upmix (check it) so u can play like series that are 2.0 , it will upmix it to all speakers..
maintain origional volume on downmix ,, not checked
enable passthrough (checked)
then choose your passthrough device ,, your optical device
dolby digital ac3 capable receiver enabled
enable dolby digital ac3 transcoding -- dont forget to check that on
dts capable reciever enabled
I have an old reciever and had alot of problems to get it working ,,,, but worked fine for me that way...
I hope it helps.