Hello,
I'm an expat in China.
When I rented my apartment, a DVD player (Shinco 8311) and a set of five loudspeakers were included. Yay, Surround sound!
However, it seems that the sound wasn't surround at all - only coming from one or two loudspeakers. After some testign, it appeared that of the outputs on the back of the DVD player (front / rear / Center / subwoofer (I think

the names are in Chinese)) , there was only signal coming from the "center" output. (I tried it with several DVDs. Always the same, so it's not a DVD with only one channel).
I complained to the landlord to have it repaired, we took it to a nearby electronics shop, and they said everything was fine with the machine. I experimented with a DVD player they had over there, and it behaved the same way (only one audio channel output).
I have come to the conclusion that there's a vast conspiracy in China, and that they only put the extra outputs for esthetics, and that there's nothing behind them.
But then, it's also possible that I'm a doofus, and I'm just doing things wrong. Or that this is a minor problem that can be fixed by a competent tinkerer (I don't trust the skills of the repairs-old-tvs-and-bicycles guy down the street that much), maybe somethings unpluged inside. WHich is why I turn to you experts
Have you ever encountered anything similar?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.