PC Stereo only on pass through to Denon AVRX3500H

[robgmun]

Hi Guys.

I was lucky enough to buy myself a Denon AVRX3500H and a Q Acoustics 7000i 5.1 Slim packages and set up it all up over the weekend. The Audyssey Setup went smoothly with no issues.

I have my PC/HTPC plugged into HDMI 1 of the Denon amp and the TV, an LG OLED65E6V, Plugged into HDMI Out (Monitor 1 ARC). So everything is bypassing through the amp. My Xbox and PS4 are hooked up to HDMI 2 and 3 respectively and they show up as the full 5.1 with no issues.

But when I switch to HDMI 1 it shows up as Stereo on the amp. On the PC itself, it shows Denon as the sound source when you click on the speaker icon. I had to change the output to 5.1 but that made no difference. When I go into the speaker setup i can choose 5.1 surround but when I click the test button all the speakers animate but i only hear sounds from the L and R.

I run through it but when I run it again it stays on 5.1 surround but I can only hear stereo, the amp never changes on the display from Stereo.

The PC is a Dell Alienware Alpha D07U like this one
Dell Alienware Alpha Gaming PC D07U, 500GB HD, Intel Core i3 2.9GHz, 4GB RAM 884116162131 | eBay

It has an HDMI and Optical Out. The GPU is an Nvidia GeForce 860M and the sound chip is a Realtek.

I'm really new to all of this and i would appreciate some help!

Thanks!

 

[hornetstinger]

Play a DTS and Dolby digital video in media player home cinema edition, ticking bitstream where applicable on hdmi or optical output, restart media player.

What does the amp show when you play these files?

 

[ubern00b]

As said above this is going to be a PCM/Bitstream issue. Not all video cards or sound cards can output LCPM (Multi channel PCM) over digital outputs. This is why it is showing up as stereo on the amp because it is, in fact, stereo. Check the audio specifications of the graphics card to see if it can output LCPM or PCM (stereo).

It will work fine bitstreaming which is the playing of Dolby or DTS encoded streams. It is a single data stream that is decoded by the amp.

Depending on your uses this may be fine, LPCM is only really an issue if you wanted to game as games are all analogue audio. You do get sound cards that can do Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect where by the sound card actually encodes the analogue LPCM into a digital stream for decoding by your amp.