wierd issue with reciever and comp

[circeseye]

im using a pioneer VSX-532 i had my comp hooked up with optical but optical only supported 2 different dolbys...switched it hdmi and i got full access to all the different ones the unit supports. (so much better quality sound)
now my biggest issue, for some reason my rears are combined there's no separation.
when i set windows 10 to 5.1 i loose all dolby options on the receiver (pcm which is raw uncompressed audio) and i loose the center speaker. the center gets combined to the 2 fronts (except in the test mode in windows all channels identify correctly)
so does anyone know what in windows is screwing up my rears? ive tried all the different ones even neo on the receiver....all do the same thing with the rear.

or a way to get windows to send the right pcm signal to use my front correctly instead of sending the center to my fronts
 

[LinuxTek]

What is your video card. Does it support 5.1 out?

[circeseye]

r9 380...and yes supports all dolby my receiver supports

[TheFlyingTraut]

Does your HDMI cable have ethernet? Link to the one you bought if possible. This has been a recent issue I have seen and resolved.

[circeseye]

as far as i know they are standard hdmi's....memory serves i dont recall anything about them having ethernet capability...and they are oh 6 or 7 years old

[TheFlyingTraut]

Atmos requires ethernet supported hdmi cables. Probably your issue.

[circeseye]

atmos???? i never said anything about atmos. my receiver doesnt even support atmos
dts audio, dolby digital plus, dts-hd, dolby true hd, dolby digital, neo....the 5.1 surrounds.

[TheFlyingTraut]

Sorry, I misread that, I've been in multiple threads. 

 

Hold on, firing up the computer to see my settings. 

 

Is your video card going from pc to receiver to monitor? (the hdmi cable)

[TheFlyingTraut]

Go to control panel>sound>playback devices
For option 1, connect the cable and set the 'Realtek digital output' as you default device, then right click it, go to properties, and in the rightmost tab select DTS or Dolby Digital or 5.1 (or something like that).
For option 2, connect the HDMI cable through the receiver and set the 'Nvidia HDMI Output' as your default device. Then click 'Configure' and select 5.1.

 

If you don't have that option... Updated sound drivers?

[circeseye]

sigh..ok
drivers  ARE UP TO DATE
did you read what i posted originally? or even the rest of the thread? where did you get nvidea (facepalm)
i already went through the device settings and windows settings
and it will not be realtek digital out. thats the rca jack....just like realtek optical is a seperate plug and fyi these 2 only support the 2 basic dolby's (dolby digital and dts audio) im going through amd hdmi which it does detect as a av reciever and shows all the dolbys i can use.
what im hoping for is someone knows what in windows 10 that needs changed thats not in the normal settings area
so again...with windows NOT SET to 5.1  my reciever gets the compressed audio and it decodes but for some reason the signal from the comp has the back 2 speakers combined no seperation
when i set windows 10 5.1 (uncompressed audio)*even thou in speaker test mode it sends the correct channel signal" everything else (all videos and program sounds) gets set with no center speaker and instead blend the center to the 2 fronts.

so compressed it blends the rear....uncompressed it blends the center to the 2 fronts....it HAS to be something in windows screwing it up


 

[tikker]

I didn't try HDMI, because I wanted to keep my refresh rate, but I did try a 3.0 setup with fronts and center through optical. One thing I did was in the properties of the audio playback device tick the "DTS Audio" and "Dobly Digital" boxes in the Supported layouts section.

Assuming you are playing surround content, have you tried running the speaker setup on the AVR again to tell it which speakers are there?

[circeseye]

6 hours ago, tikker said:

I didn't try HDMI, because I wanted to keep my refresh rate, but I did try a 3.0 setup with fronts and center through optical. One thing I did was in the properties of the audio playback device tick the "DTS Audio" and "Dobly Digital" boxes in the Supported layouts section.

Assuming you are playing surround content, have you tried running the speaker setup on the AVR again to tell it which speakers are there?

yea speaker identify is all correct in the av and in windows. its really annoying..
yea those are the only 2 you can use with optical and digital out....hdmi you have so many more you can access as long as your av supports them

[Blasteque]

On 9/22/2018 at 10:39 PM, circeseye said:

im using a pioneer VSX-532 i had my comp hooked up with optical but optical only supported 2 different dolbys...switched it hdmi and i got full access to all the different ones the unit supports. (so much better quality sound)
now my biggest issue, for some reason my rears are combined there's no separation.
when i set windows 10 to 5.1 i loose all dolby options on the receiver (pcm which is raw uncompressed audio) and i loose the center speaker. the center gets combined to the 2 fronts (except in the test mode in windows all channels identify correctly)
so does anyone know what in windows is screwing up my rears? ive tried all the different ones even neo on the receiver....all do the same thing with the rear.

or a way to get windows to send the right pcm signal to use my front correctly instead of sending the center to my fronts
 

What media player are you using?

[circeseye]

been doing a lot of checking....no matter what if i turn 5.1 off in windows (uncompressed) and let the receiver do the decoding (compressed) the backs blend

mpc, and mpc-be now these 2 only work correctly with windows set as 5.1 (uncompressed)

in a browser when watching stream movies and shows i have a 50/50 chance it will work correctly...sometimes it will use the center correctly other times not...even if i go and rewatch the same thing.
netflix app does 5.1 correctly
no voice apps will use the center in windows 5.1 ...only if the receiver is doing the decoding

twitch, youtube and such will not put the voice in the center eather if set to windows 5.1  but if switched to receiver to decode the voice does.

 

[Blasteque]

On 9/26/2018 at 6:36 PM, circeseye said:

been doing a lot of checking....no matter what if i turn 5.1 off in windows (uncompressed) and let the receiver do the decoding (compressed) the backs blend

mpc, and mpc-be now these 2 only work correctly with windows set as 5.1 (uncompressed)

in a browser when watching stream movies and shows i have a 50/50 chance it will work correctly...sometimes it will use the center correctly other times not...even if i go and rewatch the same thing.
netflix app does 5.1 correctly
no voice apps will use the center in windows 5.1 ...only if the receiver is doing the decoding

twitch, youtube and such will not put the voice in the center eather if set to windows 5.1  but if switched to receiver to decode the voice does.

 

I know you've been messing with this for a bit, so forgive me if you've already thought of this, but it seems likely that the issue is the source, not windows.  In your initial post I thought maybe the behavior you were seeing was exactly as intend you didn't fully understand how windows handles audio.

 

Specifically, windows will not output 5.1 channels unless the source has 5.1 channels.  If the source file is stereo (Youtube), then windows will only output 2 channels, not 5.1, not 2.1, just 2.0.  Even if the stereo audio is equal (effectively mono), the center channel will not be used. Likewise, this applies to all 6 channels.  If windows is set to 5.1, then windows will only output 5.1; it does not auto mix anything.  There will be no Dolby settings because it isn't a Dolby encoded data stream, it's just 6 channels.  BUT your receiver might auto mix to center, depending on its settings.

 

Look for settings in your media player for the sound output device (in this case your video card because you're using HDMI).  Make sure it allows for "bit stream".  Ultimately, you need to make sure the media player knows to send whatever audio format you have chosen in the player directly to your receiver.

 

At least, that was my initial impression.  In the above you mention inconsistent results and that is puzzling, which I think has left us all at a loss. 

 

Good luck!

[circeseye]

1 hour ago, Blasteque said:

I know you've been messing with this for a bit, so forgive me if you've already thought of this, but it seems likely that the issue is the source, not windows.  In your initial post I thought maybe the behavior you were seeing was exactly as intend you didn't fully understand how windows handles audio.

 

Specifically, windows will not output 5.1 channels unless the source has 5.1 channels.  If the source file is stereo (Youtube), then windows will only output 2 channels, not 5.1, not 2.1, just 2.0.  Even if the stereo audio is equal (effectively mono), the center channel will not be used. Likewise, this applies to all 6 channels.  If windows is set to 5.1, then windows will only output 5.1; it does not auto mix anything.  There will be no Dolby settings because it isn't a Dolby encoded data stream, it's just 6 channels.  BUT your receiver might auto mix to center, depending on its settings.

 

Look for settings in your media player for the sound output device (in this case your video card because you're using HDMI).  Make sure it allows for "bit stream".  Ultimately, you need to make sure the media player knows to send whatever audio format you have chosen in the player directly to your receiver.

 

At least, that was my initial impression.  In the above you mention inconsistent results and that is puzzling, which I think has left us all at a loss. 

 

Good luck!

yea i understand...and yea its driving me nuts with the inconsistency.....but i will keep researching and trying stuff to figure things out.....another thing ive noticed is when netflix app, amazon video, or a video player is brought up my receiver is switching to something...it goes black then come back (kind of like when you go full screen in a video game with a different resolution) yet i dont see anything different with the screen.....that one really has me stumped since its 1080p going in and 1080p tv....but it is a 4k receiver. i havent found anything but i wonder if its doing some sort of image enhancement...just not sure