Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound to play on 4.1 system?

[paruhd0x]

Alright, I have a two channel Sound Blaster Live! Value sound card and a setup where I have two front speakers and two rear speakers, and a subwoofer to the right front side. I was wondering how the sound outputted on my 4.1 system when I play a 5.1 audio DVD on my computer. Is the front center channel automatically sent to my two front speakers? Is it sent to all of my speakers? I've found that sound all together is pretty low vollume and so I am curious on how the sound is outputted and if it is able to be fixed so I don't have to turn my amp to max just to get decent sound out of my system. (I am using Klipsh PROMEDIA V.2-400 System, and my windows vollume is to the max along with my dvd player software's vollume.)

Any help is appreciated.

 

[paruhd0x]

bump...

 

[TheCorm]

That card supports technology like EAX so it should be using some form of surround sound, but it will only be 4 channel analogue rather than dolby digital, the normal term is Quadraphonic.

I have used both the SB Live Value and SB Live 5.1 and found that the sound can be fairly quiet when playing DVD's.

As to whether the centre channel is outputted to the front or rear I am not certain, I would guess front...but with a 4.1 setup, I believe the sub is put through both rear and front because if you unplug the front there is still bass.

Jamie

 

[HumbleFish]

Check Your DVD player software for a 4.1 setting- WinDVD 4+ has one... Also, set Your system to 4.1 in the control panel (not sure what it's called in XP)... And make sure Your sound card is set to 4.1.

 

[Pudgygiant]

Quadraphonic is just sound surrounding you, but not positional, correct?