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Need help with PC>Home theatre
Sanius
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I purchased an HTZsomething and such (a Samsung 5.1 setup) last week for $250 to get something other than headphones going on in my room. I enjoyed it with my computer and 360, CDs and movies and all that for a week until the surround sound crapped out.
I was running sound from my computer and 360 via simple R/W cables to the axillary plugs in the back. It did just fine on the Samsung, but this new LHT854 is a pain in my ass.
It works just fine with everything except for my computer. Sound is primarily played on the right of the center, and the right channel. It also feels like the bass is primarily playing from those speakers. The sub woofer isn't doing much of anything unless I play it in a certain PLII mode (one for music) in which sound only comes from the center right channel and sub woofer, with NO speakers working.
I made assured several times that all of the wires are hooked up correctly, and they should be because it works fine on everything except for my computer. What's going on?
BTW, I have a Realtek AC'97 card with my Intel motherboard, so it has the capabilities for 5.1 HD and such. Which it should because it worked awesome on my last receiver!
I was running sound from my computer and 360 via simple R/W cables to the axillary plugs in the back. It did just fine on the Samsung, but this new LHT854 is a pain in my ass.
It works just fine with everything except for my computer. Sound is primarily played on the right of the center, and the right channel. It also feels like the bass is primarily playing from those speakers. The sub woofer isn't doing much of anything unless I play it in a certain PLII mode (one for music) in which sound only comes from the center right channel and sub woofer, with NO speakers working.
I made assured several times that all of the wires are hooked up correctly, and they should be because it works fine on everything except for my computer. What's going on?
BTW, I have a Realtek AC'97 card with my Intel motherboard, so it has the capabilities for 5.1 HD and such. Which it should because it worked awesome on my last receiver!
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If that's what you're talking about, you cannot play surround. And you never could. If you thought you had surround, then you were fooled by Dolby ProLogic II or one of the other matrix sound codecs that emulates surround sound. The only cables that can give you surround sound are digital, and they are either HDMI (which is not supported on 99% of consumer computer hardware), digital optical, or digital coax (I have yet to meet anyone using digital coax). So unless you have an optical connection with your card, you won't have true surround sound.
There are two options here, but option B has a strong qualification. Option A is simple: continue using your RCA red/white cables, and figure out how to get your old emulation back. I may be able to help there, but I need to know the exact model of your receiver so I can verify what you're actually supporting. Option B is use a digital optical connection IF YOU HAVE it. However, that has it's own issues with computers. I've spoilered this to keep the post from dragging on...hopefully you don't know this all already.
Games are different than movies. Their soundtracks aren't in Dolby. The game simply figures out through its engine which channels different sounds belong in, and that's the end of it. Computer speakers always plugged directly into the card anyways so there was no reason for fancy encoding...the large amount of 5.1 data never had to travel anywhere, since it went directly to speakers. Now you want to plug into a receiver. That means getting the 5.1 channels to the receiver, and since HDMI isn't really an option you have to compress them by encoding them to 5.1 surround sound. And that encoding is what most computers won't be able to do. If you had computer speakers and plugged them into your 5.1 Realtek, you'd have surround.
The only card I know of for sure that can actually encode the games to Dolby is the latest PCI-e version of the Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty. I'm sure a couple others can, but not many.
The tl;dr of that spoiler is that your Realtek isn't going to be able to send surround over the RCA red/white cables, and that what it's probably doing is sending JUST the left/right channels. That means you'll have holes in your center and surround speakers. I can't explain why your left isn't working. The point of that whole post is that if you have an optical out, that STILL might not solve your problem. Let me know if this isn't clear.
Edit: so after rereading what I typed I realized that I wrote this all out for games when that may not be what you're using it for. For TV/online stuff everything I said still applies. If you're trying to play movies in this system, AND you have a digital optical out, you may be able to pass the movie's surround through the optical without decoding it. In this case, you will get surround sound. RCA still won't work.
PSN: TheScrublet
I've been listening to some CDs around the house and I indeed get surround sound from it, so I know the reciever is set up right. I have an SPDIF insert on my computer so i'll pick up the cable soon, thanks.
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