Surround sound from laptop?

[floatingdog]

Hi,

I'm looking into buying a new laptop, the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15z. I'm wondering if I can play music on my 5.1 surround sound from this laptop, or would it need a better video card or something? Also, I'm also looking to connect an extra monitor and a projector to it. I know these both use HDMI, and I have an HDMI divider, so would that work for this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ssddx]

well the surround sound question is fairly straightforward. most laptops only have a microphone and a heaphone jack which isnt capable of surround sound. to get surround sound it would depend on what type of surround sound system you have.

-if you have a computer 5.1 surround with 3x 3.5mm jacks then you would need to purchase an external soundcard for your computer.
-if you are using a receiver with surround system you have two options. one would be to get an external soundcard with spdif output (if your receiver accepts it) and two would be to run your hdmi video signal through it in passthrough mode.
-if you have an older system or different configuration you might want to list specifics.

as far as connecting extra monitors is concerned connecting one up typically is not an issue and is natively supported however connecting more than one up can sometimes be an issue. they do make devices like this http://www.astekblog.com/gadget/run-two-monitors-from-your-laptop/ which work to help connect additional monitors.

not sure what you meant by divider. did you mean a hdmi switch or a hdmi splitter? a switch would allow you to select one or the other. a divider would just split the signal and send it to both monitors. this would display the same image on both screens which i dont think is what you are looking for.

you need to be more specific on how many screens you want to use at once, what kind of surround sound system and in general what you expect to do with it.