Advanced Mini Dock and S/PDIF Out Question

Hey,

I have a T61 (Vista Business) sitting on an Advanced Mini Dock. The dock is connected to a set of Logitech Z-5500 speakers via. S/PDIF (coaxial cable).

I'm having trouble streaming 5.1 audio (Dolby Digital or DTS) to it. Music and other audio plays back fine in Stereo; but when I put in a DVD with 5.1 encoded audio, the audio still plays back in stereo.

I'm not sure if it's a setting in the Control Panel, or maybe my with media player that I have to set? I've tried playing with the settings in WMP11 and Media Player Classic with no luck, maybe I'm not looking in the right place...

In the Control Panel under the "Sound" properties, I have Dolby Digital and DTS checked. When I press the "Test" button, it successfully streams whichever encoding I am testing (and it displays "Dolby Digital" or "DTS" on the Z-5500 SoundTouch control panel). But I want this stuff to work when I play my DVDs.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about? Any feedback and help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

 

Bump

Anyone not too sure what I'm talking about? Any ideas would be really helpful! Thanks!

 

Sometimes the DVD that you're playing has options to adjust the Sound output. Perhaps look into the Movies' sound settings?

 

Ya, I've made sure to select the 5.1 option (usually in the Languages menu). When I'm using Media Player Classic to play these DVDs, and viewing the current audio information, I see "AC3, 48Khz, 6 Channel(s)" - but it still doesn't send any 5.1 audio to my speakers... just stereo still.

Has anyone else been able to do what I want to do?

 

Under your playback devices did you select the spdif digital out as your default sound device before starting up media player?

 

Yup.







Just wondering has anyone successfully streamed 5.1 encoded sound through the Advanced Mini Dock?

 

Yes, I do it all the time, using Media Player Classic. My next suggestion would be to install AC3 filter to force it to send the sound in AC3 through the SPDIF connection. http://ac3filter.net/

I rip my movies to h264 mp4 files with AAC multi channel audio using MeGui. Then using Media Player Classic and AC3 filter the laptop will on the fly convert the audio to AC3 since that's currently all my receiver supports and output it through the Advanced Mini Dock. I just leave the dock right next to the big screen so I can drop my laptop in and play movies. They look good since they are essentially upconverted to 1080 (same basic thing as an upconverting DVD player). It's not HD but it's better then my junky DVD player.

 

Thanks for the help infinus! I'll give it a try tonight and let you know how it goes.

Out of curiousity, without the AC3 filter enabled, are you able to stream 5.1 sound to your receiver?

 

I've done it before without AC3 filter but that was using a DVD in the DVD Driver and regular Media Player, not Media Player Classic. Another thing that AC3 filter lets you do is tweak the AC3 settings a bit in case there is something your reciever doesn't like about the stream (older reciever, etc...). Play around with AC3 filter and let me know if it works for you.

 

It works! Downloading and installing ac3filter lets WMP11 and MPC pass AC3 encoded sound to my z-5500 receiver for decoding.

Thanks everyone!

 

Cool, glad that got it going for you.

 

I have the same problem. I use Media Player Classic and AC3Filter. When playing movie with AC3/DTS via external USB soundcard (SoundBlaster Live! 24-Bit) everything is OK. But if I use MiniDock I am not able to send passthrough AC3/DTS data to receiver via SPDIF.
ThinkPad T61p, Win XP Professional.

THX for any help

 

Not sure what else to tell you.... Make sure you have the spdif output checked as your default in your windows sound properties. In AC3Filter set the output format to 3/2 + SW and check use spdif.

Other then that... maybe play with the settings in the spdif tab to see if it's a problem with what you are sending to your receiver.

 

I think the problem is in Mini Dock itself or in the driver.