5.1 Audio not working on Raspberry PI

Question

My setup consists of the following logic:

• Raspberry PI to TV through HDMI
• Optical cable from TV to Logitech Z-5500 soundsystem

The Raspberry PI is running Raspbmc; all setup to use 5.1 sound through HDMI (also tested with Optical/Coax) and A3C & DTS options enabled.

The TV has also has DTS enabled.

However, when playing something with 5.1 audio, only the background sound is plaid through the speakers. For example, watching Spartacus - only the audiences screams can be heard instead of the characters voices.

Is it not possible to gain true 5.1 sound using my setup? What have setup wrong?

Solution

I had the same issue when I had mine going through the TV then using the ARC (audio return channel) from the TV to the amp. The problem is that the TV does not pass 5.1 channel audio on ly 2.0. It's only meant for passing audio from the apps on the set like YouTube etc.

Hope this helps.

Comments

[Zar]

Please ask if I've missed to include any information: audio is not my area of expertise.

[heavyd]

You may get better answers over at the Raspberry PI Q & A

[Zar]

@heavyd Well, it's only partly related to the Raspberry PI, my guess is that the problem lie with the optical out from my TV..

[heavyd]

Can you test and make sure that the PI is outputing 5.1. If it is working properly then this question is likely off-topic since its relating to a problem with your TV, not a computer.