Gateway P-7801u HDMI Audio 5.1

I am connecting my P-7801u to my home theater setup for the first time, and I am unable to get 5.1 audio over the HDMI connection. Everything seems to work really well, except I only get stereo. I seem to only have a stereo option in my configuration for nVidia HDMI output device. Is it possible to get 5.1 over HDMI? Is there a trick to get this to work?

 

it is possible but only as pass through audio to be connected to an external decoder. even then its still only compatible with regular dts/dolby digital audio (sry no hd master audio or uncompressed audio) the reason is that the laptop itself is only compliant with the hdmi 1.2 specification. im sure theres a few things i missed that only looking up the hdmi spec will answer.(i cant tell yah everything )

 

Even the digital, SPDIF, driver is stereo only on these. It is possible with DVD's on the spdif that 5.1 is passed through but I haven't tried it.

 

The posts so far are correct. The digital output is "stereo". It requires an external decoder (usually your surround-sound receiver) to decode and route the 5.1 signals.

My current setup:

P-6860FX to HD TV via HDMI (audio set for "Digital Output Device" as default)
TV to Home Theater receiver via digital coaxial cable (result in 5.1 as maximum capability)

Are you connecting directly to your receiver via HDMI? Many receivers only act as "switches" for multiple HDMI connections, they won't process it.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I am connecting directly to my HDTV via HDMI. The HDTV has an optical out going to the optical input on the 5.1 receiver. I've also attempted to connect directly to the reciever's HDMI input, but it still limits it to stereo.

Based on your information (and Googling), it sounds like the receiving devices (TV or 5.1 receiver) may be incapable of detecting and decoding the 5.1 information.

 

try going optical from the laptops headphone port to your receivers optical. you might need to either buy a mini toslink to toslink cable or get a mini toslink to toslink adapter

 

Actually, that's exactly how my system is set up. What is the brand/model of the TV and receiver? Do you have to manually configure the type of signal processing required (PCM/Dolby Digital/THX etc.)?

Have you checked out AVforum.com? They are a good source of information specific to home theater equipment.

 

Ain't it HDMI 1.3?

 

I'll consider that if I get desperate. It would be nice to only have to deal with a single cable though.

Here is what I have:

Panasonic Viera TC-P54G10

Samsung HT-TX75 Home Theater System

I haven't fiddled with the receiver settings much. It automatically detects the signal from the optical input and sets it to DIGITAL IN mode. I'll have to dip into the manual and see if there are any signal processing options in that mode. I realize that my sound system isn't the greatest, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is where the limitation is.

Yeah, I've been there, but I haven't had a chance to go though the abundance of info there yet. I just wanted to check here first to make sure it was even possible to get 5.1 over HDMI on this laptop before pursuing it further.

 

I just got a 7805u laptop and this morning was setting up the HDMI output. I was able to connect to my home theatre with full 7.1 sound. Tested it with 5.1 dvd's and 5.1 mpg files. Don't have any 7.1 files or dvd's but I'm sure it would work since I went through the sound test and heard all my speakers as it switched between channels.

I downloaded H.264 codec and enabled 7.1, then went back to the nvidia HDMI setup and pick 7.1 output.

Not sure if that's the right steps but that's what I did this morning and it's working perfect.

I also noticed that if you have the laptop and tv setup to sync the displays, the video will have some tearing. To fix this, I setup it up so that only the tv is displaying when plugged into HDMI out on the laptop.

Hope that helps.

 

well according to gateways specs it is hdmi 1.2 although i havent actually checked to see if the hdmi 1.3 features work on it or not but considering i dont have a home theater system and tv that work with the newer hdmi spec addition i dont care lol.