# Laptop with SPDIF (Optical) out with dolby digital live (DDL) support



## Dolby Digital Live (Sep 20, 2020)

Are there any laptops in 2020 that has SPDIF ( even if it requires 3.5 to optical  adapter) output that you could get  5.1 DDL signal?
I know in the past there were many but recently I have not seen even one....
Thank you for any info!


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## Mussels (Sep 20, 2020)

A very dead technology, so i doubt it - look into a USB soundcard with that feature


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## Tanzmusikus (Sep 20, 2020)

@Dolby Digital Live
Which inputs are possible by your destination sound system (AVR or 5.1 loudspeaker system)?

Am I understand you right - you are searching for a laptop to buy?
Or a connection solution for a laptop you still have in use?

You could also use a docking station ...

Or if your current laptop has HDMI output, then you could use an HDMI audio extractor.









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## Dolby Digital Live (Sep 20, 2020)

Mussels said:


> A very dead technology, so i doubt it - look into a USB soundcard with that feature



 You are right.... Which is  very unfortunate IMHO as there is nothing in the world of PC sound  that can deal with 5.1 channels properly. Say when you are watching a properly encoded  movie on your PC.  correct me if I am mistaken...


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## R-T-B (Sep 20, 2020)

Dolby Digital Live said:


> You are right.... Which is  very unfortunate IMHO as there is nothing in the world of PC sound  that can deal with 5.1 channels properly. Say when you are watching a properly encoded  movie on your PC.  correct me if I am mistaken...



HDMI can.

Also, look at external USB DACs.  A lot of them can do this.  But what you need depends on your end objective (what are you finally playing this on?)


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## Tanzmusikus (Sep 20, 2020)

My Acer Laptop has HDMI & USB. Both could be used to transmit 5.1 sound.
P.e. via HDMI direct to my AVR ... or ... via USB through docking station / sound card to AVR.

Old AMD Laptops perhaps could output 5.1 via DVI-to-HDMI with a special AMD adapter (HD 2xxx, HD3xxx/4000,...).
Some Laptops has Digital Output inside the analogue output. There are many possibilities ...


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## Dolby Digital Live (Sep 21, 2020)

I want to be able to get 5.1 audio signal  when playback the following files:

I want to do it via optical which goes into my Dolby receiver, so i get 6 channels  when watching movies....


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## FreedomEclipse (Sep 21, 2020)

HDMi all the way. More bandwidth than TOSLINK.

Thats how i use my laptop too occasionally. You need to enable bitstreaming in MPC-HC when you got the HDMi in and set the speaker configuration to 5.1 in windows.

I used to run a creative SB-Z via TOSLINK to my AVR but i got ride of my soundcard all together and just use the onboard HDMi or GPu to output the audio streams directly to my AVR so it does all the heavy lifting when it comes to movies.


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## mikolaj612 (Sep 21, 2020)

Hmm, my laptop (which is MSI GP75-9SE) got optical output via 3.5mm jack (so you need an adapter or dedicated cable), however I do really recommend you to use SPDIF Passthrough and let your AVR decode that signal - basically your PC will stream untouched audio data directly.
This is far better than using apps or plugins (mostly bundled with Realtek/Sound Card drivers), the reason for using such programs/plugins is when you're using analog speakers connected to an amplifier or directly to your PC and they can't handle such processing by themself, so if you don't want to lose multichannel audio or just better bitrate/audio source (because it might be downgraded to poorer format).

Nowadays even recent TV's are able to decode advanced Dolby Audio and DTS codecs so no reason to this on your PC.
Also HDMI is more robust and easier solution for AVR - especially if you got good/recent one, you can rely on AVR features audio and video wise 

Every modern video player like VLC, MPC-HC, PotPlayer etc. will let you do passthrough to AVR, no matter how advanced sound codec is baked in.
You also need to be aware about some limitations with toslink :

*Digital audio signals, such as 5.1/7.1 multi-channel PCM, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (Atmos), DTS-HD MA, DTS:X, and Auro 3D Audio cannot be transferred via Toslink connections.*

So if you're going to watch some good quality movies (even from netflix, they sometimes use DTS or DDP (even with Atmos) then switch over to HDMI.
Every bluray remux, good quality BD rip, sometimes even Webrips are using at least DTS or DDP/Dolby TrueHD.
Dolby Digital Plus (also known as E-AC3) are mostly used for VOD rips from Netflix, Disney+ etc. because this is the "worst" format that could be used with Dolby Atmos layer and due to it's size it better suit VOD politics.

Classic DTS or AC-3 could be considered as a DVD era, but those codecs are still popular - mostly with smaller size BD rips or if you're watching movies with different than english sound (it's pretty common that language specific audio tracks are coded in the inferior to english quality, for example DTS-HD vs. AC-3).

Also if you're using old or bacis quality AVR (or soundbar) without support for Atmos, DTS-HD MA / X then don't worry, your AVR should recognize it as a lower quality stream and play it, for example: if you're missing DTS-HD support, but your AVR works with classic DTS then it will be played as a DTS.
Most audio formats used in movies are compatibile with their older versions - which is good, because you don't need to worry or reencode (and then remux) entire movie.


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## Mussels (Sep 21, 2020)

HDMI can do PCM, as well as DD/DTS standards. You just enable passthrough in your media player, and away you go.


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## Dolby Digital Live (Sep 21, 2020)

Thank yo for sharing your wisdom!
I guess I have an older receiver that does not have an HDMI. And to me HDMI is video signal only as is it located on your video card....  so I have a HDMI going  into the  projector displaying a perfect pixel by pixel    native 1080 resolution  and toss-link going into the  Dolby digital receiver for the sound processing. I was reluctant to introduce the HDMI capable receiver as I did not want to have an extra piece of hardware sitting between PC and Projector that can possible have some negative impact on the video signal as some HDMI receivers boost " video processors"  and i did not want that....  
Then I do not understand which piece of hardware in your PC is picking up that 5.1 channel audio say from a MKV file and send it to the video card into the HDMI!

P.S. my reciver outputs to 5.1 speakers:


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## Mussels (Sep 21, 2020)

The GPU sends out the HDMI signal including your audio.


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## Dolby Digital Live (Sep 21, 2020)

Tanzmusikus said:


> @Dolby Digital Live
> Which inputs are possible by your destination sound system (AVR or 5.1 loudspeaker system)?
> 
> Am I understand you right - you are searching for a laptop to buy?
> ...


I hear you!
so what you saying that those HDMI audio extractors can extract 5.1 audio as long as it is there on the first place!?  Again my receiver  has an optical AKA tosslink AKA spdif input and can decode that 5.1 signal.


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## mikolaj612 (Sep 21, 2020)

Also there is always an option for you to buy HDMI splitter that will easily create toslink output from HDMI, that small device will cost you few USD and will do the trick pretty much anywhere 
Just place between your GPU -> TV/audio and voila.


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## Dolby Digital Live (Sep 21, 2020)

I am checking a properties on my Lenovo laptop and there is no option to tell the laptop to output sound though HDMI:


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## R-T-B (Sep 21, 2020)

Dolby Digital Live said:


> I am checking a properties on my Lenovo laptop and there is no option to tell the laptop to output sound though HDMI:
> View attachment 169372



The HDMI generally has to be hooked to something first.


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## CityCultivator (Sep 21, 2020)

In your case, it is OK to use an HDMI splitter, but personally I use a SoundBlaster Omni for Dolby Digital Live. It can also bitstream DTS.
I did use a splitter for a while, but I had issues with it with a high refresh rate monitor.
I applied Dolby Digital Plus via APO driver back then.


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## Tanzmusikus (Sep 21, 2020)

Dolby Digital Live said:


> I hear you!
> so what you saying that those HDMI audio extractors can extract 5.1 audio as long as it is there on the first place!? Again my receiver has an optical AKA tosslink AKA spdif input and can decode that 5.1 signal.


What you need to do is not much. You could use your toslink, if you install a driver for DDL/DTS-C or just DHT4.
DDL = Dolby Digital Live (encoding of up to 5.1)
DTS-C = DTS Connect (encoding of up to 5.1)
DHT4 = Dolby Home Theater v4 (encoding of up to 5.1)

It seems that you use Windows 7 - is that right?
If yes, then you can install the driver of Alan Finotty (for Realtek HD Audio): https://github.com/AlanFinotty1995/AAFRealtekMod/releases
! Deinstall Realtek driver before installtion of this driver. Don't install Creative Sound Blaster driver !


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## CityCultivator (Sep 21, 2020)

Tanzmusikus said:


> What you need to do is not much. You could use your toslink, if you install a driver for DDL/DTS-C or just DHT4.
> DDL = Dolby Digital Live (encoding of up to 5.1)
> DTS-C = DTS Connect (encoding of up to 5.1)
> DHT4 = Dolby Home Theater v4 (encoding of up to 5.1)
> ...


Receiver has TOSLINK, not laptop.
Modded driver won't help.


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## Tanzmusikus (Sep 21, 2020)

@Dolby Digital Live
It would be nice, that you give us detailed information abut your hardware, please!

At the moment I only know:
- older Lenovo Laptop with HDMI output
- Yamaha AVR with 5.1 toslink input

*What are the exact model names of that both devices?*

***



Dolby Digital Live said:


> And to me HDMI is video signal only as is it located on your video card.... so I have a HDMI going into the projector displaying a perfect pixel by pixel native 1080 resolution and toss-link going into the Dolby digital receiver for the sound processing.


For audio over HDMI you need an (relative) actual graphics driver ... and an internal gpu (iGPU), that can output audio.

My laptop & TV have a resolution of 1080p too. 
It should be generally no problem to handle (Non-HD) 5.1 streams additionally to the video track over HDMI.



Dolby Digital Live said:


> I did not want to have an extra piece of hardware sitting between PC and Projector that can possible have some negative impact on the video signal as some HDMI receivers boost " video processors" and i did not want that.


The extractors are mostly limited to fixed resolutions like 1080p24/25/30/50/60/120 or 2160p30/60 and so on.
Variable refresh rate (VRR) could not be used with the most of those HDMI extractors.
If you definitly use a fixed refresh rate, then I could be a good solution for you.

For VRR you could use an external USB sound device, which can handle 5.1 over toslink output.



Dolby Digital Live said:


> I am checking a properties on my Lenovo laptop and there is no option to tell the laptop to output sound though HDMI:


*Please post a picture of the properties of this sound device*. It seems to be an analogue output, but also may be the HDMI.


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