Surround Sound Question

[atthedouble2]

Hi there!

My Mainboard has built in digital coaxial and optical out sockets.

If I use this with a home cinema system, so the 'optical out' from the PC goes into the 'optical in' on the home cinema system, will this be true surround sound?

I've heard about people thinking they've got real surround sound, when actually it's 'fake'!

Thanks

 

[Flaring Afro]

It could, but you'd have to make sure you set it as 5.1 in your speaker settings.

 

[The_Other_One]

Are you sure the fake surround sound isn't referring to some of these SRS deals? I'm quite sure optical or digital outputs will give you surround sound. Well, as Afro said, assuming it's on 5.1 or whatever surround sound mode you want

 

[diduknowthat]

"Real" or "fake" surround sound depends on the file you're planing. If you're playing say a stereo mp3 file, your receiver will use some sort of mixing to get it to play through all the speakers, this is "fake" surround. If you're playing a DVD or bluray with 5.1 or 7.1 audio, then it's real surround sound.

 

[atthedouble2]

"Real" or "fake" surround sound depends on the file you're planing. If you're playing say a stereo mp3 file, your receiver will use some sort of mixing to get it to play through all the speakers, this is "fake" surround. If you're playing a DVD or bluray with 5.1 or 7.1 audio, then it's real surround sound.

okay, I just wanted to confirm that optical is actually capable of carrying the 'surround signals' rather than just normal stereo.

Thanks

 

[PunterCam]

I'm never entirely certain about this. I reckon it depends on the format of the digital signal for one thing.

I mean, you can get 8 channels of audio down an ADAT digital line, or 2 channels if it's s/pdif. At 44.1 or 48k. So who knows! I've owned a z5500 logitech system for 2 years now, and I've been using the optical out from my mac, and I dunno. The fact that it advertises itself as a 96k digital converter makes me doubt it is 5.1, as you'd only get a maximum of 4 channels down the lightpipe at that sample-rate...

Anyone done any research?