No 5.1 signal being sent from iTunes through Apple TV to receiver?

[Billss]

Hi, "holics"
I just got an LG 42LM6200 LED-LCD HDTV and the most recent Apple TV. Finally loaded most of my CD's into iTunes on a MacBook Pro, and have been listening to them by pulling them up on our iPad wirelessly from the laptop using Airplay. I used Apple Lossless method to load CD's into iTunes. I had the TV optical digital out going into my Sony DE545 receiver, but my subwoofer was not receiving any signal.

I hooked my Apple TV optical digital audio out to DE545, but still no sound out of subwoofer. The DE545 shows "PCM 48." Same problem when I purchased an album from iTunes. I know that the DE545 can send 5.1 signal, because TV programs (TV optical digital audio to DE545) activate subwoofer.

Are there major flaws in my strategy? Can Apple TV send a signal through Optical Digital wire that contains information that can be used by my DE545 to play 5.1? Can my LG TV send 5.1 signals. (I think that the LG manual says some information is stripped from signal the TV receives from non-television sources?)

Can newer receivers receive HDMI input? Would that solve my problem if I used HDMI from TV to an HDMI compatible receiver?

Given that I rarely sit on the couch and just groove on music, but enjoy listening when I'm puttering around, should I even be bothering with 5.1?

 

[BMXTRIX]

CDs are a stereo source.

Left and right speakers only.

If you want the subwoofer to play, then you need to set up your A/V receiver to send 'MAIN & LFE' to the subwoofer. This will pull out frequencies below your crossover set point and send them to your subwoofer, because as it is now, your CDs only contain 2.0 channel audio. There is no separate subwoofer track and there is no separate track for the center or surround speakers.

Seems to me that everything is working perfectly, but if you want your subwoofer to handle the bass duties properly, then it is your Sony which needs a bit of tweaking. Likewise, if you want 'all' your speakers to play music, then you would need to switch from 'stereo' to '5-channel (or 7-channel) stereo' mode on the Sony. All of this is Sony dependent.