Didja know? (360-5.1 related)

[Brevity]

I had this question the other day I found the answer and thought I would pass it along.


Re: Problems getting 5.1 surround w/optical through receiver

his topic has been up before - and the answer isn't as complicated as it seems.

The original Xbox outputs its dashboard sound, and subsequently soundtracks and CDs played back from there, in regular 2-channel stereo sent as an uncompressed digital signal. The Xbox 360 on the other hand apparently outputs the dashboard sound in 5.1 Dolby Digital, with music inserted into left and right channels.

To the receiver, it looks like it's a 5.1 signal coming through even though only the left and right channels actually contain sound while music is being played. As a result, the receiver disables a lot of its processing modes, since they are not normally applicable to a 5.1 signal.

The bass management in the receiver should still be working if it has been set up appropriately.

5.1 with 3 empty channels is sooooo useful... NOT

[l Maximus l]

Personally, I'd rather have music coming from the front of me and not potentially drowning out other sound effects that are happening behind me.

The format on CDs is always in stereo, as far as I know...not in 5.1, so it completely makes sense to me.

[ShadedNine]

I think he's complaining more about the fact that your receiver locks out a lot of settings and controls such as equalization that are not available with 5.1 sound. Many receivers bypass a lot of the processing when being fed digital signals, since these controls are done using analog. Some receivers will convert to 6 ch analog then allow you to do whatever you like, while digital amps do all their modifications digitally anyway.