as the subject says, im running winXP sp3 with a fortissimo III and using the spdif optical to go to my surround sound system. the problem is when i try to watch a DVD, i get 4 all the surround stuff but only out of the center and right/left fronts. nothing from the rear or sub. and the other weirdness is that i get absolutely no dialog. change to stereo, everything is fine but obviously not 5.1 test using something from youtube that is in surround using AC3, everything works and comes from appropriate speakers. during all of this the lights on the front that indicate that im sending a valid 5.1 signal to my surround sound unit always show that im only sending stereo (i have a separate light for each speaker that comes on when sending 5.1) even though i can clearly hear that its sending sound to just that specific speaker which says its not getting any signal. this is just really really weird and i can not find anything anywhere on this... i installed ac3 filter to see if that corrected some of the problems, but its as if i did absolutely nothing since no matter what i do in the ac3 filter settings does a single thing. even turning off spdif completely which should have killed all AC3 sounds period did absolutely nothing. either its not being used or its being ignored somehow. any and all ideas are welcome at this point including messing with the registry.
oh even better... i noticed that hercules had newer drivers that supposedly corrected some bugs that they have released since i last downloaded drivers. Grabbed those drivers and reinstalled... now i get no surround AT ALL. everything for center and front left/right is now coming out of the center and thats it.
I would DL the latest driver, then disconnect the internet. Uninstall the drivers you have installed, restart, and install the latest drivers, restart again. Also make sure windows update is set to not do upgrades without permission. Then plug the internet back in. What are you using to play DVDs? Have you tried DVDs that you know are using AC3 5.1? DTS movies have problems with most windows DVD softwares. VLC is a magic bullet for such issues; no need to install anything else...and it is free.
