Member Avatar for Borzoi

I currently have a problem where DVD's will not output any audio to the front speakers of my 5.1 surround sound unless something else is also sending audio there. For example, I watch a scene with lots of dialogue but I only have the background audio. If I open up my audio test at during this time and click on a front speaker to test, the test audio plays and I can also hear the audio from the DVD which should be coming from the front speakers (the speech).

This problem happens in every DVD playing software used. I have gone through all the audio settings in the various programs but nothing changes. Because this happens in every DVD playing software, I figure this must be something outside of the software. I have tried updating audio codecs and also changing settings for the DVD drive (disabling digital audio) but this doesn't help.

I use VLC media player but I have also tried Windows Media Player and Easy DVD player (somthing I found on Download.com).

In VLC, I have tried every 5.1 audio setting but to no avail. If I set it to Stereo, Mono or even 2 Front 2 Back I get all audio, just not correctly.

One other thing I have noticed is that in VLC (and Easy DVD), I could only select 5.1 surround if I had "Force detection of Dolby Surround" to "Yes" or "True" in the settings which suggests that for some reason, the software cannot automatically detect the surround sound.

I'm at a loss as to what to try next. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by reedone816

Dani AI

Generated

This looks like a classic center‑channel routing/decoding mismatch rather than a faulty speaker. Because the speaker hardware responds to the test tones, the most likely culprits are (a) whether the PC or an external receiver is doing the Dolby/DTS decoding, (b) the player’s output mode (bitstream/pass‑through vs decoded PCM), and (c) how the Windows/driver stack advertises and maps the speaker layout.

Practical checklist (run these in order):

  1. Confirm the physical output path: analog 3‑jack 5.1 vs digital/HDMI (S/PDIF). If you’re using optical/coax/HDMI and the player is bit‑streaming AC3/DTS, the external AVR must be decoding — otherwise dialog can be missing.
  2. Force software decode to multichannel PCM in the player (turn passthrough off). In players like VLC, pick a DirectSound/WaveOut output and the correct device, then disable passthrough so the PC decodes to 5.1.
  3. In Windows (and Realtek HD Audio Manager) set the playback device to 5.1, verify channel mapping with the built‑in speaker test, disable any “enhancements” or virtual surround options, and check sample rate/bit depth (use 48 kHz/16 bit for DVD material).
  4. Test with a known 5.1 source (a true AC3/DTS sample or a different DVD) to see whether dialog appears.
  5. If software/plugins (AC3Filter/ffdshow) or drivers are present, try resetting to defaults or reinstalling Realtek/HDA drivers.

’s cheap extra‑speaker trick is an understandable workaround, but fixing the decode/output chain is preferable. Common root causes are incorrect passthrough settings, wrong audio device selected in the player, or a driver/virtual‑surround feature that remaps/mutes the center channel.

Member Avatar for reedone816

yes i also have the same experience with you, but having no energy to tinker, i just add a stereo/mono speaker (US$8) to the motherboard audio jack (mine is onboard realtek 7.1), there using the realtek software (you'll find the speaker icon in the lower left), i reconfigure it as front speaker/subwoofer). so whenever i can't hear the dialogue, i just increase the stereo speaker volume.
and this is not just happened in xp, in 7 also.
and the video software i use are power dvd and vlc.

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