How to get surround sound with SPDIF and ac3filter

[Abel408]

Hello everyone! I am not getting any sound right now from my computer to the receiver... First I'll list my equipment:


Onkyo TX-NR807 receiver
Nvidia 9800gx2 video card
MSI NEO2-FR Motherboard

Software:
Windows 7
AC3Filter
FFDshow
SPDIFer


I have spdif running from an hdmi cable to the receiver. Let me first say that I did have sound (although I don't think it was true surround sound) before reformatting my computer. After reformatting I cannot get any sound from my digital audio (spdif) playback device. I downloaded and installed all software I had before. There are so many settings in ffdshow, ac3filter, and spdifer and I have no idea what to set any of them at!

I have a $3,000+ system here and I can't even get sound! ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Abel408]

Anyone know of a web page I can look at that will explain the ac3filter settings for spdif?

 

[yepimonfire]

What playback software are you using? Can you get analog sound? If not then you may need to install your soundcard drivers again. Alot of DVD/Blu-Ray playback programs support direct SPDIF output. If your using power DVD its under the preferences, audio, and in the drop-down box that lets you chose you speaker setup it should have an SPDIF output option. Also, im not entirely sure about this, but many times with O/S' past XP if you have DVD etc playback software you shouldn't need any thing like ac3filter.

 

[yepimonfire]

wait, are you trying to get audio from all sound sources on your computer besides DVD playback etc software?

 

[Abel408]

Well I'm trying to play movies and music or any type of sound for that matter through my spdif. I can hear the sound through my computer speakers fine, but when I change my playback device to digital output I do not hear anything and no signal is being sent to the receiver...

 

[yepimonfire]

try going into the control panel and looking under audio settings, you may be able to find a place to switch the output from analog to digital.


also you can find the ac3filter setting under your start menu in the ac3 filter folder

 

[Abel408]

I should mention that I'm a sysadmin so I know a lot about computers and windows. The windows settings I have are correct, but I have no idea what to set the ac3filter settings as.

 

[yepimonfire]

Go into start, programs, then ac3 filter, click AC3 filter config then check this box.

 

[yepimonfire]

sorry it took so long to reply i recently had to reformat my comp so i had to redownload AC3 filter to take a screenshot also make sure you set up the amount of channels

 

[Abel408]

Thanks for all your help! Unfortunately that is what I have it set as and it still does not work :/

 

[yepimonfire]

well that is insane

does your sound card have 7 audio outputs that are analog?

 

[Shock]

My advice is to remove all of those codec programs and just use VLC player. It outputs 5.1 through SPDIF perfectly. I don't know if you need them for something else but if you simply want 5.1 through SPDIF VLC will do it.

 

[yepimonfire]

OP already mentioned he wanted all of his sound to come out the SPDIF, not just movies.

well since SPDIF is not working maybe something is wrong with your soundcard because you said you had set it up in the windows setting to stream SPDIF, if it was functioning you would have gotten PCM audio on all your stuff no matter what it was, im thinking of another idea and then will post it.

 

[yepimonfire]

oh there is another tab on AC3 filter where you can check use SPDIF, its the tab up at the top in the settings window that says SPDIF, on that page there is a box you can check that say use SPDIF try that.

also is the HDMI cable your attempting to get sound from hooked to the video card?

if this still fails what you can do is if you have multi-channel outputs on your sound card is just hook them directly to the receiver, if not and it is only stereo what you can do is hook it up via that and set AC3 filter to matrix DD 5.1/ DTS etc, into dolby pro logic II, then select that setting on your receiver when you want to watch a movie and you will get fairly accurate surround sound.

if you cant figure out how to do this tell me and ill take a screenshot