Enthusiast II

Getting DD 5.1 to the Playbar from a PC

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Hi,

I have a playbar, sub and 2 play 1's

Currently I have my PC connected to my TV over HDMI and then the TV connects to the playbar over Optical - because of this Windows only let's me select "stereo" for the sound output format because Windows does not see the soundbar, it only sees the TV as a stereo sound system using it's EDID data during the HDMI handshake process

I want to change this to Dolby Digital 5.1 so that I can get surround sound through the Sonos system

How exactly do I go about getting this done?

I know there are several options, but the two main ones seem to be getting some sort of HDMI to Optical switching tool which confuses the PC into thinking it's a 5.1 audio system OR another option I've found is getting a sound card which supports Dolby Digital Live encoding - that would allow me to connect the sound card to the playbar over optical and force all audio output into DD 5.1 format

Has anyone done the above, which is easier/better and are there any other options out there?

Also forgot to mention, my TV is a Samsung KS8000, I play my PC games at 4k resolution, 60fps and with HDR - if you guys think the HDMI to optical audio switching tool is a good idea, can you please recommend one which supports all the above?

Thanks

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NaekyrAuthor

Enthusiast II

I can't comment accurately on your other questions, I just know that it works fantastically for the setup that I have

I did so some research before I went with this to make sure it's going to work for me.

* I'm not sure about the cable length, best to do some research on that
* Yes 5.1 can go over HDMI, the problem for me is that that Playbar doesn't accept HDMI and going from the graphics card to the TV, my PC sees the TV as a 2.0 stereo speaker system so my PC doesn't let me enable 5.1 over HDMI. Also, doing 5.1 over HDMI is more likely to be multi channel encoded and not dolby, so even if the Playbar had an HDMI port it may not work. Other soundbars do support LPCM encoding over HDMI from a PC. The EDID question is an interesting one, in theory it could work but I've never tried it so I can't comment.

Based on all of this, getting dolby 5.1 from a PC to the playbar can work, but it requires some planning, research and maybe trial and error. If you did the same as my setup it would 100% work, but doing some different I can't guarantee it, you have to try for yourself

For anyone that doesn't already own a Playbar, to be honest I'd just suggest buying something else for your PC. Any high end 5.1 or 7.1 soundbar package from LG, Sony, Samsung etc will support LPCM and Dolby and DTS, so it doesn't even matter - anyway you send 5.1 to the soundbar it will just work, no EDID switches, no soundcards needed etc

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