# iTunes and 5.1 on HDMI output



## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

Hello everyone, 
I have been fighting with this for a few days until I found this forum... I was hoping someone has experience with this.

Here is my hardware configuration:
ASRock Fatal1ty Pro-M
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7750
DENON AVR-1911
Sony KDL-46HX805

the hdmi is connected from the graphics card to the receiver and from the receiver to the tv. 
I have in general non problem getting 5.1 from dvd or games, but from iTunes...

The problem is I have tons of stuff both from the iTunes Store from my old tav 1 which this htpc was supposed to substitute and I would rather hear it in surround ;-) 

Here what happens:
At first my iTunes bubble for audio track selection did offer stereo and surround, but the surround produced no sound. I tried then to reinstall the drivers, quicktime, change the audio setting from 44k stereo to 96k 5.1 in all possible combinations, still the same. One day later and after a restart, the surround option has gone grey and stayed like that since...

Anyone has any experience or advice? Thank in advance!!


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## Aquinus (May 31, 2013)

I suspect that iTunes might be trying to play 6-channel audio, but it's not encoded. Keep in mind that HDMI only forwards compressed multi-channel audio. If iTunes isn't using DTX or ProLogic or something, you're most likely not going to get surround.

Have you tried using something like optical S/PDIF instead?

Also could you post a picture of your audio device? 

Example:


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## H82LUZ73 (May 31, 2013)

Sorry to say this but All AV that are not Windows 7 Sound certified will never play 5.1 Dolby from I Tunes.The only way to get them is if you Buy the actual DVD 5.1 ( I have RUSH MOVING PICTURES 5.1)version and  then play it it in PowerDVD or similar .I know this first hand from my system specs.Win7 certification means the A/V unit will decode the files(something like PowerDVD does but for music/Games) to out put it in 5.1 Dolby ,If not it will just go to pcm mode 2 speakers setting for music and games.

Just for fun do you own BF3 ?Try to play that in 5.1 Dolby and have the A/V unit reading it as such,Chances are it will not work,It will just do what mine does goes to pcm and pretends to be 5.1 .
I hope that clears it up for you ,I did a search and  the Denon 1913 unit is what you need for full PC Sound in Dolby


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> I suspect that iTunes might be trying to play 6-channel audio, but it's not encoded. Keep in mind that HDMI only forwards compressed multi-channel audio. If iTunes isn't using DTX or ProLogic or something, you're most likely not going to get surround.
> 
> Have you tried using something like optical S/PDIF instead?
> 
> ...



I did not yet try the S/PDIF but I will, and I was under the impression that HDMI 1.4 can do 7.1 PCM

I will post the screen as soon as I am home.


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

H82LUZ73 said:


> Sorry to say this but All AV that are not Windows 7 Sound certified will never play 5.1 Dolby from I Tunes.The only way to get them is if you Buy the actual DVD 5.1 ( I have RUSH MOVING PICTURES 5.1)version and  then play it it in PowerDVD or similar .I know this first hand from my system specs.Win7 certification means the A/V unit will decode the files(something like PowerDVD does but for music/Games) to out put it in 5.1 Dolby ,If not it will just go to pcm mode 2 speakers setting for music and games.
> 
> Just for fun do you own BF3 ?Try to play that in 5.1 Dolby and have the A/V unit reading it as such,Chances are it will not work,It will just do what mine does goes to pcm and pretends to be 5.1 .
> I hope that clears it up for you ,I did a search and  the Denon 1913 unit is what you need for full PC Sound in Dolby




That would be great! I have already a DENON 1909 and 1911... I will line them up...

Maybe there is a software solution to decode the audio part into 5.1 PCM? As a last resort I will use my 10 channels M-AUDIO Profire 610 and hook it up with analogue cable... but I would rather avoid it, because of the cable mess and software bloat


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## Aquinus (May 31, 2013)

dani0805 said:


> I did not yet try the S/PDIF but I will, and I was under the impression that HDMI 1.4 can do 7.1 PCM
> 
> I will post the screen as soon as I am home.





dani0805 said:


> That would be great! I have already a DENON 1909 and 1911... I will line them up...
> 
> Maybe there is a software solution to decode the audio part into 5.1 PCM? As a last resort I will use my 10 channels M-AUDIO Profire 610 and hook it up with analogue cable... but I would rather avoid it, because of the cable mess and software bloat



A friendly reminder: Please use the edit button as opposed to posting multiple times. I cuts down on excessive thread bumps and is quite frankly a forum rule.

Let us know how it goes, but a screenshot of the supported formats would be rather enlightening.


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

Here is the audio device info


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## CJCerny (May 31, 2013)

I don't believe that iTunes passes any 5.1 data to the OS, regardless of how it is configured. The only way that this seems possible is to use another app to strip the DRM off of the iTunes files.


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

CJCerny said:


> I don't believe that iTunes passes any 5.1 data to the OS, regardless of how it is configured. The only way that this seems possible is to use another app to strip the DRM off of the iTunes files.



the functionality is there. You can select the audio track named surround. in the bubble where you can select the subtitles. I don't believe they placed it there without some backend support...

Btw... on my gaming pc where I have a ASUS Xonar DX iTunes plays in surround mode no problem



Aquinus said:


> I suspect that iTunes might be trying to play 6-channel audio, but it's not encoded. Keep in mind that HDMI only forwards compressed multi-channel audio. If iTunes isn't using DTX or ProLogic or something, you're most likely not going to get surround.
> 
> Have you tried using something like optical S/PDIF instead?
> 
> ...



So I hooked up the S/PDIF cable from the mainboard sound card and it works like a charm, ofc no 7.1 PCM support but just compressed DD and DTS

Guess I will live with it...


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## AsRock (May 31, 2013)

Pluging in the Optic cable as well as though HDMI may cancel what 5.1 sound he has though HDMI



H82LUZ73 said:


> Sorry to say this but All AV that are not Windows 7 Sound certified will never play 5.1 Dolby from I Tunes.The only way to get them is if you Buy the actual DVD 5.1 ( I have RUSH MOVING PICTURES 5.1)version and  then play it it in PowerDVD or similar .I know this first hand from my system specs.Win7 certification means the A/V unit will decode the files(something like PowerDVD does but for music/Games) to out put it in 5.1 Dolby *,If not it will just go to pcm mode 2 speakers setting for music and games.*
> 
> Just for fun do you own BF3 ?Try to play that in 5.1 Dolby and have the A/V unit reading it as such,Chances are it will not work,It will just do what mine does goes to pcm and pretends to be 5.1 .
> I hope that clears it up for you ,I did a search and  the Denon 1913 unit is what you need for full PC Sound in Dolby



Or multi channel PCM which is directional and works as good as and i have no issue knowing were a sound is.


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## Aquinus (May 31, 2013)

It sounds to me that the content you're playing isn't playing in surround sound because it doesn't have surround audio channels. Games on the other hand can do multiple channels fairly easily because the game does all the sound positioning calculations for sounds as opposed to audio and video that have specific channels for surround.

So your iTunes audio probably is just 2 channel audio which is why you're only hearing it out of two channels even if you're running in surround mode.

That's my 2 cents.


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> It sounds to me that the content you're playing isn't playing in surround sound because it doesn't have surround audio channels. Games on the other hand can do multiple channels fairly easily because the game does all the sound positioning calculations for sounds as opposed to audio and video that have specific channels for surround.
> 
> So your iTunes audio probably is just 2 channel audio which is why you're only hearing it out of two channels even if you're running in surround mode.
> 
> That's my 2 cents.



It is in DTS I think, it definitely have surround specific channels even if compressed because I can now hear the back surround for appropriate positional events in Game of Thrones HD episodes. 

Anyway thanks for the suggestion to use S/PDIF


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## Aquinus (May 31, 2013)

dani0805 said:


> It is in DTS I think, it definitely have surround specific channels even if compressed because I can now hear the back surround for appropriate positional events in Game of Thrones HD episodes.



Right, but that's dependent on the video. I bet you the majority of audio (audio files,) are going to be stereo and not surround. So it uses it if it has it, that is all. Surround doesn't turn all audio into surround audio. That's the real important thing to take away from this thread.


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> Right, but that's dependent on the video. I bet you the majority of audio (audio files,) are going to be stereo and not surround. So it uses it if it has it, that is all. Surround doesn't turn all audio into surround audio. That's the real important thing to take away from this thread.



Absolutely! Though the same video did not play in surround through hdmi. And frankly it is quite disturbing, because the amd chip needed only to pass the DTS through to the receiver, and it failed miserably.


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## CJCerny (May 31, 2013)

There's software involved here too. The app doing the playback has to be able to pass the track to the hardware. Just because you have a video card that can pass all current DD and DTS tracks to your receiver via HDMI doesn't mean that will happen. The soundtrack types and bit depths listed on the screenshot above is only a reflection of what the hardware is capable of, not the app doing the playback.


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## dani0805 (May 31, 2013)

CJCerny said:


> There's software involved here too. The app doing the playback has to be able to pass the track to the hardware. Just because you have a video card that can pass all current DD and DTS tracks to your receiver via HDMI doesn't mean that will happen. The soundtrack types and bit depths listed on the screenshot above is only a reflection of what the hardware is capable of, not the app doing the playback.





dani0805 said:


> So I hooked up the S/PDIF cable from the mainboard sound card and it works like a charm, ofc no 7.1 PCM support but just compressed DD and DTS
> 
> Guess I will live with it...


Same app, same video, same receiver, different audio chip... I guess the app is not at fault here


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## CJCerny (May 31, 2013)

If you can playback the DD track on a DVD from Media Player through the HDMI and the SPDIF, then it could still be a problem with iTunes that is keeping it from sending anything over the HDMI. Try Apple's support page for iTunes.

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/


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