Surround Sound from laptop

[gerbs4450]

I have a new Samsung R480 laptop and I'm trying to hook it up to my Sony STR-DH510 receiver via hdmi for surround sound. When I go through device manager, my receiver pops up. I can configure it to 5.1, which is what my receiver runs. If I test the speakers, I get each individual speaker to play its bell tone when its supposed to. So I go back to the device and click on properties. Then I click on supported formats and it shows 8 maximum channels and DTS Audio and Dolby Digital as encoded formats. But when I open iTunes and play, I only get left and right audio. When I plug my 3.5mm to rca adaptor in to the headphones jack, I get left right and subwoofer. I know iTunes may not be capable of splitting tracks recorded only in stereo into true surround, but I would like to at least get sound through all my speakers. Is my issue iTunes or some system setting? Thanks all.

 

[Johnathan Lyman]

It's neither. iTunes will play as many audio channels as the content contains, no more.

This would be something that since you do not have a higher-end sound card (say a PCI add-in card for a desktop) you cannot force more streams out of your PC (as far as I know).

The only thing I can think of is your receiver doing the work in this case.

You can re-wire your speakers to be included on the L/R leads only, but that may cause other issues.

You're not the only one who has the desire to do such a thing as this. Read this forum thread on Winamp's forums and maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.