Do our labtops have surround sound capablities?

I have a dv9500t and I'm connected my TV through the HDMI out port. But I only get stereo not surround. I would think with the HDMI out the sound card onboard would be able to output surround sound?

 

Go to the sound settings and set it to be surround.

 

If there's only two speakers, then you'll only get stereo sounds. 'Surround' sound consists of speakers in front of and behind you. Even if you do the settings, it wouldn't make a difference unless you have multiple speakers hooked up.

 

First, it is "la ptop"

Anyway, it appears that HP's laptops no longer have optical outputs through the headphone jack. In the past, prior to HDMI outputs, the headphone jack doubled as an optical output.

So now you can only get stereo sound out of the headphone jack.

The HDMI output can pass Dolby Digital and DTS signals from DVDs and such. But you will need the HDMI cable connected to a surround sound receiver OR your TV will need to have an optical output to pass the signal BACK to the receiver for decoding.

If you need to use an HDMI to DVI converter, then you'll need to find one that can split the sound out to an optical or coaxial cable. But good luck with that.

Also, if you're doing this with movies, you'll need to go into whatever software you are using and configure it to use the SPDIF digital output.

If you want surround sound with gaming.. then you're out of luck. You'll need the Creative X-Fi ExpressCard and their little "surround sound" adapter to get REAL surround sound from games.

 

I have the laptop connected to a Sony receiver then HDMI out to the TV (laptop HDMI->receiver HDMI->TV). But receiver detects PCM / stereo and when I override it by putting into surround mode I dont get sound of my back speakers.

I am actually doing this with movies.

Why do I need to set the software to SPDIF digit output? I'm watching these movies using the basic media player and the K-lite codec pack.

 

The movies need to include the surround sound track. Sounds to me like you are trying to playback a divx movie or something that does not have surround sound to begin with.

 

I'm playing a .mkv movie file, its a blu ray / HD-DVD 720P ripped DVD file, I'm pretty sure I get surround sound out of my desktop computer when playing it. I guess what I can also try doing is play a normal DVD and that should definitely have surround sound.

I have tried changing the speaker settings in windows control panel to surround, but when I go to the RealTekHD section it won't allow me to change the speakers to surround, it's only option is stereo speakers; I believe this is where the problem is.