Netflix won’t choose my HDMI 5.1 audio

[gmcintire]

I am using my Dell E6500 laptop with HDMI into a new Yamaha RXV567 7.1 system. The Yamaha feeds a Vivtek projector.

It plays DVDs and Blurays with Arcsoft Total Media Player in beautiful 5.1 audio just fine, but I cannot get netflix and VUDU to send 5.1 to the HDMI port. They send it in stereo instead.

Windows seems to recognize the HDMI device, allowing me to set it up as stereo, quadriphonic, 5.1 or 7.1 and the test of speakers works great.

I know both Netflix and Vudu are sending Dolby Digital Plus and the “Encoding formats” on the HDMI port are Dolby and DTS, but Windows 7 Ultimate is supposed to convert DD+ to Dolby. Why isn’t this happening? Why is it preferring to send only 2 channels out the 7.1 speakers. The Yamaha says it is getting 7.1 PCM from the laptop.

Any help or education would be greatly appreciated.

[swoon]

I don’t believe Netflix and VUDU send anything but stereo to the PC right now. It is true, VUDU can use DD+, but they only send to connected devices. Netflix can also send DD+, but I believe that is only PS3 at this point.

Even if you were receiving the DD+ stream, you need the right type of GPU in order to bitstream DD+, otherwise, you’d be best decoding and sending as LPCM not transcoding to DD.

[gmcintire]

Aaron,

Thanks for your comment.

I know VUDU and Netflix(sometimes) send 5.1(DD+ I think from reading about them), because if I use my USB soundcard, I get 5.1 out. The “encoding Formats” on the USB are Dolby and DTS, so I think it must get converted by Win7. The HDMI formats are also Dolby and DTS.

You mention “decoding and sending as LPCM”. I don’t know how do that with Netflix and VUDU??? I’m a newbie at this. Can you tell me how to do it?

 

[oliverredfox]

Besides PS3, I recall seeing some Blu-ray Players and WDLive+ can do Netflix with 5.1 now.  But PCs are still stuck with stereo.  (Part of it had to do with a flaw with Silverlight only doing stereo.  SRS made it possible to do 5.1 late last year, but haven’t seen much about it since then.)

[swoon]

Are you sure your USB sound device isn’t using something like DD Live to re-encode the audio? This is usually a tab in the audio properties if the card is device is capable of it.

Basically, the PC should decode the audio for you and just send it using your HDMI audio device. If it is 5.1 audio, the PC will decode and send as LPCM.

[gmcintire]

Aaron,

This is the USB card http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-RSSC-External-Sound-Card/dp/B0001OZ2K8

It converts USB to its 5.1 analog speaker output ports, and it also sends the 5.1 audio over a coax cable to your receiver. It is an awkward device requiring a lot of fooling with to get it right (hint: do not install its driver, but let Win7 install its driver), but it can somehow get 5.1 out of Netflix and VUDU. I don’t see anything about DD live on its configuration or documentation, so I assume that is not part of it, but don’t know for sure.

[oliverredfox]

From the 1st review off Amazon “Otherwise, it will process a 2-channel sound into “fake” 5.1 rather than the separation that is intended on the disc”  So it sounds like it’s upconverting the Netflix stereo stream into a fake 5.1 signal.  You’d be better off doing a stereo signal from your computer and putting your receiver in Dolby ProLogic mode.

[swoon]

I agree with oliverredfox. It appears the USB device will attempt to create a 5.1 mix out of the audio. In general, it probably is best to let the receiver do this. You really just want to send the original audio to it (and unless something has changed recently, it’s stereo for both Netflix and VUDU on PC).

[gmcintire]

guys,

It says “The other thing is that if you want pure 5.1 sound from a DVD or 5.1 sound source, you’ll need to tell the software to output to S/PDIF. Otherwise, it will process a 2-channel sound into “fake” 5.1 rather than the separation that is intended on the disc.”

It outputs to SPDIF as true 5.1.

It sounds way too good to be upconverted. That is not what’s going on. Because of this, I am convinced that you can get true 5.1 out of Netflix and Vudu on a PC.

I just want it to go out my HDMI port so I can avoid all the hassel of the USB device.

 

[Mike Garcen]

I’m using Netflix via MCE and my HDMI Onkyo receiver which supports everything, and I can confirm my Netflix streaming is NOT in 5.1 audio. Now this is NOT in the browser, but via the MCE Silverlight app…but i don’t think it makes a difference.

[swoon]

By definition, VUDU only streams stereo sound if you are using the SD service tier (which is all that is available on the PC).

As far as I am aware, this information has not changed for the PC:

Today, we cannot use WMDRM to deliver AC3 or DD+ audio, which means that only stereo (delivered via WMA) is available. PCs and Macs decode the WMA, and CE players also transcode to PCM for digital connections to receivers. We could technically include multichannel audio using WMAPro, but essentially no receivers are actually capable of decoding that.

Netflix

[gmcintire]

Well, I finally figured something out.

If I tell the Win7 Sound control panel to output “stereo” instead of 7.1, it allows the Yamaha’s Dolby PLIIx Surround decoder to kick in and finally I get the “good 5.1” sound (over HDMI) from netflix and VUDU that I could only get with the USB/SPDIF card before.

So, I have solved my original problem, but still need education.

Is this what you call “upconverted” sound?

It certainly sounds far better than any sound programs I’ve heard operating on a true stereo source. So, I think there is more coming down these two channels than simple stereo.

When I read this wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic it sounds to me like this is true surround sound.

Upconverted or not, I promise you will like netflix and VUDU much more in this mode.

Please help me understand this better.

[oliverredfox]

The “upconverted” sound from your USB device when set to 5.1 is most likely faked and not true ProLogic sound.

Now on the other hand, when you send stereo output and use ProLogic (I run Dolby Pro Logic IIx) on your stereo, it is actually taking information that was encoded into the stereo signal to figure out additional speaker channels.  ProLogic has been around for a long time, even your old VHS tapes would have its sound encoded that way.

What you had previously been asking about is Dolby Digital.  DD has the information digital encoded with each speaker given it’s own stream.  This allows for even more information to be given per speaker resulting in more separation and range.

So you are hearing true surround sound, you just aren’t hearing Dolby Digital surround sound.  Basically ProLogic uses analog audio tricks (phasing, sync, etc) to hide the information for surround in 2 channels, while DD transmits all the channels individually.  I hope that helps explain it for you (a bit sleepy as write this).

[swoon]

Your AVR probably doesn’t process the LPCM (7.1 audio input) when it is received and instead, directly outputs to each speaker with amplification. This means it is relying on the source device (your laptop in this case) to perform the processing.

By outputting only stereo, the AVR is able to process the audio. In this case, you are using ProLogic processing to produce audio for all of your speakers.

When you used the USB sound device, it also was doing some sort of processing and apparently creating a Dolby Digital mix for your AVR. This is inherently at a disadvantage compared to sending the original decoded stereo audio to the AVR for processing because the USB device is processing the audio and re-compressing it into the DD output. The additional compression cycle is always going to damage the audio in some way. It is possible it may not be noticeable and/or the processing in the USB device is superior to the AVR. It probably is not the case though.

[gmcintire]

The sound now over the HDMI cable as stereo (96KHz) does sound better than the USB/SPDIF which was at 48KHz.

Now sure if that is why it sounds a little better or if it is some compressing the USB card did as you guys mention.

I’m curious why you think the signal was compressed over the USB. I’m thinking it was just surround encoded two channel stereo that could be decoded by the Yamaha, the same as is happening now over HDMI.

The USB interface in the sound control panel is named ‘Direct’ and I cannot set up any speakers as you normally can. I am thinking this is just some way of bit streaming. Would that be incorrect?

Not that it matters too much for me now. The HDMI Dolby PLx sound is so good, I can’t really ask for more over the internet. Maybe I’ll change my mind someday when we can hear DD+ from netflix.

Thanks for all your explanations, guys. It’s really helping me understand all these different formats and transcodings.

[Author]

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