Please help with 5.1 surround sound setup.

[venom92]

Hi, i've literaly been working my ass off in finding how to set up my 5.1 surround sound by i havent been able to.. There are NO youtube or google tutorials as to how to do this setup.

What im trying to do is use my 5.1 speakers to play movies with surround sound. I have set up everything correctly so there is no problem with the wiring. The problem is i can play games, such as cod4, with surround sound but when it comes to movies it only uses 2.1 when on the windows control panel it says 5.1. Ive tryed every single way including updating the drivers and setting up room correlation but that doesnt help at all. The only way i can use my 5.1 efficiently is when i play games. When i do play music only the front speakers actually work. When i go right up to the back speakers they outpud some muffled sound as if they are only supposed to keep the enviroment and the background music going, but thats another story.

So, can someone help me in setting up this 5.1 system so i can watch movies with surround sound. I have downloaded several things, although i dont know why, they aparantly supposed to fix it. Nothing works. Ive downloaded VLC player and i use that to play the movies, downloaded and installed K-lite codec pack, installed plugins for media player, installed AC3Filter but none work and fix the problem.

note: i dont think AC3Filter is working because it says this message:

Input format: Unknown - 0
User format: PCM Float 3/2.1 (5.1) 0
Output format: Unknown - 0

and i dont think it works at all because it doesnt count up the frames when i start playing music. As far as ive read you have to encode and decode movies but i have no idea how to do that.. And, is it possible to kinda change the sound on normal movies that dont have surround sound and make time do have it.?>?..

thanks a lot for everyone that helps me sort this problem out, been waiting a loooooong time..

[GoNz0]

scrap it all and download cccp codec pack and use media player classic thats included. you can check the audio FFaudio filter as it has a graphic with all channels to let u know its outputting 5.1

[jim]

Get rid of every codec you can, probably won't work but there you go. Packs are sometimes okay, but not always.

All you really need are haali mkv splitter, ffdshow and ac3filter. Those three together should pretty much do the trick.

[Agent]

Codec packs cause more problems than solutions IMO.

FFDShow and download anything else you need manually. I really see little point in codec packs.

[KalC]

Codec packs cause more problems than solutions IMO.

FFDShow and download anything else you need manually. I really see little point in codec packs.

+1 Just keep it nice and simple

[aidanjt]

Never had any problems with klite mega codec pack. Comes with MPCHC too.

[venom92]

i uninstalled K-lite codek pack and installed cccp and played with windows media player classic but nothing happened. Its still the same thing it hasnt changed anything. Does it matter what PLAYER i play it with, and also how to i know weather the movie has surround sound. I downloaded a couple of HDTV and Blue-ray quality films, do they all have surround in them?

[venom92]

Codec packs cause more problems than solutions IMO.

FFDShow and download anything else you need manually. I really see little point in codec packs.

I downloaded FFDshow and istalled it. Im not sure how to work it out, there were a few settings in during the setup installation and i done what had to be done but that didnt really change anything. I just left all the other complex settings as they were default. Do i have to change anything, or should it work right after ive installed the program? And, also what does audio/video decoder mean? im not quite sure what encoding/decoding means, im guessing encoding means coding a normal 2.0 video to a 5.1 video surround sound?><

[crazyfool]

ffdshow is a video and audio decoder so you can opt for it to decode your video as well as your audio if you wish... if your watching dvds they usually they have a 5.1 soundtrack so maybe your player is using the wrong audio stream?

[jim]

You need to get rid of all the other codecs first, then install FFDshow. You shouldn't need to change any settings.

Bear in mind that the way you watch the film will be important - if you're watching it via a DVD, then yes 5.1. If it's something that's been encoded into a file, then perhaps not.

[venom92]

Okayy.... i have deleted every single media player, codecs and codec pack there is. I downloaded FFShow and played it with windows media player, only problem is there is no codecs and it doesnt work. I thought you said FFShow is a codec? or if it isnt, what is it? Cause you cant really use it or play anything with it, i dont undestand how it works, all there is is just some files and configuration and thats it, there is no exe or anything. The only thing there is is "makeAVIS" which im guessing is the main executable but when i click on it all it comes up with is a 1 second flash of CMD and dissapears.

So from what i uderstand these are the instructions.

1. download FFShow and install. (leave settings default)
2. Download HDTV movie
3. play with windows media player..

[iftiq]

You seem to be confusing many issues together. Probably the best thing to do first is to work out if your 5.1 output is working at all. It seems that it is because you can play games with surround sound.

But to confirm whether it is working with films I'd suggest getting an actual DVD, not a downloaded file, and playing that in some DVD player software on your computer. You can use Windows Media Player or Nero ShowTime or Cyberlink (both of which are available as free trials) or something like that. Then see if you're getting surround sound.

If not then there's something wrong with your setup.

If you are getting surround sound (which I suspect would be the case because you have it in games) then chances are the files you are downloading do not contain a 5.1 audio channel. Which is not surprising as they would have been optimized for download size and therefore had the surround sound audio track ripped out.

[venom92]

You seem to be confusing many issues together. Probably the best thing to do first is to work out if your 5.1 output is working at all. It seems that it is because you can play games with surround sound.

But to confirm whether it is working with films I'd suggest getting an actual DVD, not a downloaded file, and playing that in some DVD player software on your computer. You can use Windows Media Player or Nero ShowTime or Cyberlink (both of which are available as free trials) or something like that. Then see if you're getting surround sound.

If not then there's something wrong with your setup.

If you are getting surround sound (which I suspect would be the case because you have it in games) then chances are the files you are downloading do not contain a 5.1 audio channel. Which is not surprising as they would have been optimized for download size and therefore had the surround sound audio track ripped out.

OK, i gave a shot weather it would play an actual original DVD which is not surround, and guess wt. it didnt work, i actually thought for a second it will work. I guess its the setup more than the files then. I put StarWars 5: The empire strikes back and as i said, there was no surround sound. So, original DVD, got NO surround sound. - (I used windows media player to play it.)