audio out to my surround sound receiver

[aellis2]

I recently built a Media PC to replace all the old-fashioned components in our living room (CD player, DVD player, VCR, etc.) While I've been very happy with the system to date there's one problem that's been annoying me. I can only get the PC to send one channel to the surround sound receiver. The receiver does it's best to interpret this signal and does a decent job splitting it between the front 3 channels, but I want my 5 channel surround sound back. I have a Sound Blaster Live! card installed in the PC. To get sound out to the receiver I plugged a mini-stereo (1/8"?) plug into the audio-out port on the sound card then connected that to a splitter with RCA jacks. I have the 2 RCA plugs plugged into the left and right channels of the Video 1 input on my receiver, exactly the same as I would with any other component. My receiver is a bit old so I'm wondering if newer receivers have a method other than RCA plugs for connecting components or is there something I'm doing wrong with the software or the way I'm connecting things. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[KpeX]

I plugged a mini-stereo (1/8"?) plug into the audio-out port on the sound card then connected that to a splitter with RCA jacks. I have the 2 RCA plugs plugged into the left and right channels of the Video 1 input on my receiver

Sounds to me like a standard stereo connection. You can get dolby surround out of this, but only Pro Logic. Dolby Pro Logic is a matrixed format, if the source is not Dolby Pro Logic surround, your receiver will probably do its best to fake it. There's no way you can get a true discrete 5.1 format to your receiver with such a connection, you'll need a s/pdif out on your card, not sure if that one has it. Read up the AC3 Q&A and other Audio stickies for more info. hth,

KpeX

[aellis2]

Hey Kpex, thanks for your help. I'll let you know how things turn out after I research this.