Updated about 13 yrs, 2 mths ago (September 8, 2011). Know a better answer? Let me know!

Enabling Digital Audio S/PDIF Pass –Through via HDMI on DisplayPort

How to send digital S/PDIF surround sound to an HDMI device via the DisplayPort on a Dell Latitude E6500.

I have a Dell E6500 laptop computer running Windows 7 (Ultimate, 64bit), and it has a DisplayPort for connecting to external monitors, TV’s, and such. I wanted to play video with surround-encoded audio via my surround decoder, via my TV, via the DisplayPort.

The set-up is as follows:

My surround sound decoder is connected to my television via an optical (toslink) cable. The television is connected to the DisplayPort on my Dell E6500 laptop via an HDMI lead and an HDMI to DisplayPort adaptor.

This works out of the box, but there is no surround sound.

After a lot of searching, I found this solution.

Remove/Uninstall the IDT Audio control panel/configuration tool, if it is installed or if you do not have a separate “Digital Audio S/PDIF” playback device selectable under “Playback Devices” (right click the volume icon in the task bar). Once this is uninstalled, you should have a separate playback device called “Digital Audio S/PDIF”.

You can now select the Digital Audio (S/PDIF) device as a playback device in whatever software you like to use to play your videos (VLC for example). This should then pass-thru the digital surround to your TV.

However, to further complicate matters, while my TV sends AC-3 (Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital, ATSC A/52) straight to the attached decoder, it will not send DTS. This means I need to send the digital surround signal straight to the TV (and then on to the surround decoder) if it’s encoded as AC-3 (Dolby), but I need to re-encode it to AC-3 if it’s DTS. Fortunately, this is easy to do. Simply install and AC3Filter, and configure it to output AC-3/Dolby Digital, pass-through AC-3, but nothing else. It will encode everything else to AC-3. This only works in DirectShow players (such as Windows Media Player/Windows Media Center), so won’t help in VLC.

Updated about 13 yrs, 2 mths ago (September 8, 2011). Know a better answer? Let me know!

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