I lplug in a optical cable from Pc to surround system...only 2 speaker

[HardSide]

So I plugged in an optical cable from my computer going to my surround system, it only plays on the 2 front speakers. Not all 5. What can I do, using windows 7, and what ive been trying to play was realplayer or winamp files. Always 2 speakers work.

[Joel]

Is the source material more than 2 channels?

[HardSide]

I have no idea, how can I tell? I figured mp3s would be more then 2 channels.

[seanhutch]

Nope. mp3's are almost always 2 ch.

[Mr. Gibs]

Most surround systems come with a sort of emulator that will play the audio from all 5 channels. If not you might have to convert all your mp3s to a format that supports 5 channels, it still won't be true surround but it should play from all speakers then.

[lnmnky]

Some sound cards only support 2 channels from the optical unless they passthru to a DTS receiver.

Games + optical will sometimes only give you 2 channels as they are not DTS or PCM.

Something like this you might have to use AC3 filter

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/106540

[pupdawg21]

This is normal behavior. MP3 files are typically stereo and most PCs outputting it through optical/spdif will play it as such when hooked up to a receiver. You can emulate additional speakers by setting your receiver to a Dolby Pro Logic or DTS mode which should enable additional speakers in a pseudo surround mode. This is also a problem especially in games that have surround sound effects. You will typically only get the front 2 channels of audio when hooked up via optical/spdif from the PC. The only time when true surround will kick in with a real DTS/Dolby digital signal flowing out of the PC will be if you actually play a DVD/Blu ray/HD DVD movie from the PC. When you do this you will probably notice on your receiver the front will probably change to say that it is receiving a dolby digital signal and you should notice that your center channel, and surround speakers will activate and play sounds and effects as expected. But for music and most games you will be stuck in 2 channel land without using a mode on your receiver which will expand it to more channels.

[Storm]

i had the pleasure of trying to figure this out when i got an optical cable on friday, lot of googling explained it though :D