surround sound assistance

[Kotu]

Hi there, I got some nice new speakers for christmas (Philips MMS460) but i am having difficulties getting them working. I have searched google and it seems there are quite a few people with the same issues .

I currently have an SN25P (shuttle) with onboard (envy 24) 5.1 surround output. Using the analogue cables i can get all the speakers to output when testing. But it seems that games/dvds/music all just output in stereo, if i select any surround settings then it just copies the stereo to each side (still no surround) and I never get any bass output to the subwoofer.

At a guess, it would seem the digital output on my shuttle is required, but the speakers only have analogue inputs!

So the question is, is there any software to make the setup work (convert the digital surround system games and films use to the analogue the speakers need). Or are there any really small amps which would do a straight conversion (dont really want a huge home cinema amp just for a pc).

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

[Kotu]

media player classic for the films, it says its using 6 channel audio but the audio deck software for the envy 24 shows it only using 2 channels (output levels for each speaker). I noticed it also mentioned ac3 audio from the dvd, so i have tried using ac3filter with bass redir (120), this seems to make the bass and rear surround channels work although the rear sound output is much lower than the front.

using the half life 2 sound test, rear left and rear right both come out of all the speakers while the subwoofer test produces no sound. This makes it sound like normal stereo sound in game.

 

[Kotu]

only a Center/LFE swap option, that stops the center output working though.