Help Connecting HomeTheater to Motherboard

arsalanashraf

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May 6, 2015
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Hey guys, I seriously need your help. Yesterday I bought Samsung HT-F455BK for my PC. Now I know there is no "HDMI In" in it only "HDMI Out" for the tv and S/PDIF option. Now when I try to connect both HDMI's of HomeTheater and PC to TV, it only sends me 2.1 channel audio :(.I want 5.1 channel audio for my PC.

Now I guess S/PDIF is the only option left since there's no "HDMI In" in it. So I bought the S/PDIF cable, I don't know where to connect it to my mother board Gigabyte H87-HD3, it says it has S/PDIF In and Out but where is it and how should I connect it? Please help me I'm kinda freaked out. Lol.
 
Solution
1) many do support 5.1 over hdmi ARC, however i cannot say that all do. generally the only ones you might have an issue with are very cheap models typically. have you tested if hdmi arc is working properly for you?

2)as i said before there are two types of spdif, coax and optical. i'm guessing your motherboard uses coax spdif (please check your manual) but the home theater uses optical. this would need a conversion box (and again, not guaranteed to be 5.1 unless all devices support it).
does your tv have hdmi ARC capability? if so, you may be able to connect pc -> tv and ht -> tv and enable arc to allow pc -> tv -> ht streaming of the sound (this is what hdmi arc allows).

what does your manual say about spdif? likely its referring to coaxial spdif not optical spdif (though perhaps it also came with an adapter of some sort). i tried pulling up a manual but the site would not allow it so you need to read yours and say what it reads.

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you bought a rather cheap HTIB (home theater in a box). it is not guaranteed that it accepts 5.1 via optical (many cheap ones do not) and it is not guaranteed that your motherboard can output 5.1 over optical (some onboard do not). the trouble is that 5.1 over optical requires compression while most optical is uncompressed (2.0 stereo sound = uncompressed, 5.1 requires compression).

even if your tv supports arc, it may only register as a 2.0 capable device to your pc (you would need to test, and this assumes your tv is arc capable). if that is the case, it might still only give you 2.0 despite having arc capability.

to compound it further, even if you had bought a "cheap" htib which did have hdmi input, its not guaranteed to have 5.1 (i've seen some with only stereo input if you can believe it).

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in short:

try hdmi arc.

read the manual to see what it says about spdif support and see what the deal is as i cant access the manual right now.

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problems like this are why its so much easier to have a true receiver (AVR) in a setup instead of the junk dvd/br player slash receiver combo box. or at the bare minimum a hdmi input which definitely supports 5.1 input.


 

arsalanashraf

Estimable
May 6, 2015
6
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4,510
Code:
Thankyou for your answer :)
Just wanna ask two more questions.
1) Do all the new tv's bypass 5.1 audio over HDMI?

2)I bought the S/PDIF cable but it seems I can't connect it as there is no option on my PC's rear panel (GIGABYTE H87-HD3) just blue,gray,black,grren,pink,orange ports. What is the exact thing needed here to connect it to my PC?
 
1) many do support 5.1 over hdmi ARC, however i cannot say that all do. generally the only ones you might have an issue with are very cheap models typically. have you tested if hdmi arc is working properly for you?

2)as i said before there are two types of spdif, coax and optical. i'm guessing your motherboard uses coax spdif (please check your manual) but the home theater uses optical. this would need a conversion box (and again, not guaranteed to be 5.1 unless all devices support it).
 
Solution

arsalanashraf

Estimable
May 6, 2015
6
0
4,510
I just connect the HDMI from my dvd to TV And I get 2.1 sound on my PC (HDMI). If that means its HDMI Arc compatible then it is, otherwise I don't think its supported so I'm not sure.

P.S My tv doesn't have S/PDIF option as well.
 
if you are getting sound in that manner then yes, hdmi arc supported. however, as i mentioned before it seems that you're only getting 2.1 via this method since the pc recognizes the tv as a 2.0 stereo source not 5.1. try manually changing this in audio devices to 5.1 but i cannot guarantee it will work.

you might just need to use an adapter to hook up to your ht system. either a coax spdif to optical spdif or a hdmi 5.1 audio extractor to optical. again, cant guarantee you'll get 5.1 with the hardware you have but worth a shot.