Cannot output 5.1 audio over HDMI to receiver

@Action925  If you go into Control Panel > Sound and go to the Playback properties of your Intel Display/HDMI Audio device, is there a test function that would test all 5 channels?  One variable that may be coming into play is that there's more than one way to deliver multi-channel audio over HDMI.  The first is "bitstream" playback, which is when an pre-encoded audio track such as DD, DTS, etc. is just passed over HDMI without any decoding by your laptop, because your receiver would be doing the decoding.  The other way is PCM, where the HDMI output carries 5.1 audio in uncompressed form.  With only a few exceptions, games would use this mechanism because games don't have a pre-mastered audio track the way movies would.  Your receiver would show something like PCM/Multi Ch In when it's receiving this type of audio signal.  But it's also possible for PCs to decode the DD/DTS bitstream track and pass it over HDMI as PCM/uncompressed audio, which can be handy when working with older receivers that might not know how to decode newer bitstream formats.  If your receiver CAN decode those, then there's no quality difference in the final result based on which device does the decoding (except for Dolby Atmos/DTS:X tracks, which need to be decoded by your receiver for proper rendering of those object-oriented audio tracks), but it might help to determine if only one type of audio is the problem.

Thank you for the detailed reply. I’ll have to check on these things when I get the chance. I believe it is currently outputting PCM but I will check to be certain.

Can anyone pls confirm they can get 5.1 or 7.1 consistently working with their XPS laptop connected to your receiver?

So here is the odd thing. I finally got a chance to look into this and I can run speaker tests that clearly output sound to all 5 speakers (and sub). So apparently this means things should be working okay, right? The problem is that when I actually go and watch Disney+, I only hear sound out of the front speakers (not center or rear speakers). Additionally, on my receiver I can choose the type of input (stereo, multi-channel in, direct, etc). So I chose multi-channel in and the receiver shows that indeed the input is 5.1 and that the output is 5.1. But again, no sound except from front speakers.

When I watch Netflix through my Samsung smart tv’s embedded app, my receiver automatically says Dolby Digital without even me having to select any audio mode. This tells me that the receiver is properly receiving a DD signal and is using it as is. Why is Disney+ via a browser doing anything different? I suppose I could watch Netflix from my connected laptop instead of via the smart TV itself and see what the audio output is.

So, still nothing resolved yet... ugh.

@Action925  I have a Denon receiver myself (AVR-X4300H), although I'm not trying to watch streaming from my PC.  The only time I'm able to see Multi Ch In is when the source is actually set up to send a multi-channel PCM signal.  When it's sending a multi-channel bitstream signal like DD/DTS, the options on the receiver should change.  But seeing Multi Ch In just means that the source has negotiated a multi-channel PCM link with the receiver.  It doesn't necessarily mean that the source is sending audio on each of those channels all the time.  It is entirely possible to enable 5.1 audio on your HDMI link and then play a regular stereo music track, for example.

I suspect what you're seeing will be down to Disney+ itself, specifically that they've set up their service so that people streaming from a PC browser will only receive a stereo audio track rather than having a multi-channel track available -- even though they'll provide that track to streaming boxes.  It could just be in the interest of maximizing compatibility (and therefore reducing support issues) even if it reduces functionality.  Streaming boxes are pretty easy to deal with in terms of handling things like multi-channel PCM or bitstream output reliably.  PCs are more complicated because you never know exactly what type of audio equipment the PC is connected to.  Content will almost always use a bitstream track for multi-channel rather than PCM simply because bitstream allows compression.  When you've got a PC connected via HDMI to a receiver like yours, then the PC can either just pass the bitstream track through to the receiver (in which case you'd see something like DD+ on your receiver since it's doing the decoding) or it can decode the bitstream locally and then transmit the decoded audio as multi-channel PCM (in which case you'd see Multi Ch In on the receiver).  But suppose you had a PC and were just trying to watch the content on regular attached speakers, or the laptop's built-in speakers.  Some audio chipsets in PCs don't know how to decode those bitstreams, especially newer bitstreams like DD+, DD TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, etc., and if they're not connected to a receiver, then they don't have the option of just passing that through for the receiver to deal with. At that point, the user would get no audio.  I guess Disney+ could do something like allow users to choose whether to use a stereo track or a bitstream, but that's a bit more complexity.

Also keep in mind that Disney+ is relatively new, so capabilities may expand later.  But in fairness, people streaming from a PC that's connected via HDMI to a TV is probably a pretty small portion of the viewer base.  Most people watching on a TV will probably be using some sort of streaming device, and most people watching on a PC will probably be using their PC's built-in or directly attached speakers.  And the people watching from a smartphone or tablet would probably be larger than the entire PC watching market, never mind the "PC connected to an AV receiver" market.

The bottom line is that if you're able to get your receiver to show Multi Ch In while your PC is connected, then your PC is set up to transmit multi-channel audio.  If you haven't already, also go into your audio properties and make sure you've enabled bitstream audio output for all codecs that your receiver supports, which should be all of them.  That way if the content contains a bitstream track, then even if your browser can't decode it, you'd still be able to pass it through.  But if you've already done that and you still can't get multi-channel audio, I suspect it's because Disney+ isn't providing it to your PC in the first place.

(Deleted an earlier version of this post and posting this replacement since I was no longer able to edit the earlier post to correct some information.)

Ok, I got curious and played around with this a bit myself. It looks like a few things have changed since I last tinkered. Apparently you do not need to manually enable bitstream output for various formats anymore. It seems that the Control Panel > Sound applet just shows you which bitstream formats the attached receiver supports.  In Sound, I had to click Configure and manually enable 5.1 output, otherwise I only got Stereo even when playing a multi-channel audio file.  But after I enabled 5.1, I saw "Multi Ch In" even if I was only playing a stereo audio file.  The exception was bitstream audio, which worked regardless of what was specified in Configure and always caused the receiver to show the format being decoded.  But THAT only worked from applications that actually support bitstream output, like VLC -- and even there I had to specifically enable HDMI bitstream, which wasn't enabled by default.

But then I started looking at streaming services. Like you, I only got stereo on Disney+. Even though the receiver showed Multi Ch In, I was only getting audio from Front Left and Front Right.  But then I tried Netflix and got the same result when using a browser. Doing some digging, I found a Netflix support article that specifically said that multi-channel audio isn't available when watching on a PC through a browser, and you instead need to use the Netflix app on your PC if you want that. So this limitation doesn't seem to be unique to Disney+ -- but it looks like Disney+ doesn't offer a Windows app.

In any case, it doesn't look like there's anything wrong with your setup. It's a limitation of the content you're trying to watch, or more specifically the variant of the content that's being delivered when you choose to watch it from a PC browser.

Your findings are exactly what I concluded as well. Somehow Microsoft Edge and/or native Windows 10 doesn’t support true 5.1 or 7.1 sound via browser.

I actually found that same Netflix article you mentioned and installed the app for Windows 10. Lo and behold, the receiver showed “Dolby Digital +” on its face. So that confirms that the laptop is capable of sending a true 5.1 sound. I guess I’m still surprised by the fact that straight bitstream output is not resulting in multi-channel sound (5.1 or 7.1). I’m lead to this conclusion, which could be wrong because of my related findings below — read on...

This actually brings up a host of other related problems, but not specific to the laptop. For example, I have a 2015 Samsung UN75JU7100 TV and when I have it set to use “Bitstream” for HDMI Audio Output, the face of my receiver **never** shows Dolby or DTS anything. I only get to choose “Stereo”, “PLII”, “Neo:X”, “Multi Ch Stereo”, “Mono Movie”, and “Virtual” (this is when I press the Movie sound button — I get similar choices when pressing the Music or Game sound buttons). I always use Netflix to test because it will clearly show when any title has HDR, 5.1, etc. The actual sound only comes out of the front speakers.

Interestingly enough, when I change the TV’s output to PCM (which means the TV will be doing the decoding), the face of my receiver will show Dolby Digital when viewing most Netflix content (which is also curious because Netflix has switched to Dolby Digital + for almost everything so this means the TV is only capable of recognizing the base signal and not the enhancements which is part of the “+” part — I was surprised it was able to do this because there are many devices that will simply not recognize the entire signal).

So I am making the assumption that if my TV is sending an actual bitstream signal and the result is the receiver not ever showing Dolby or DTS anything, then the receiver is not truly receiving one of those signals, despite supposedly the TV being able to send such a signal. Now, going back to my laptop, you can see why I think the bitstream output is suspect. If the signal contains Dolby or DTS encoding, it would’ve shown as such on the face of the receiver. Remember how when I used the Netflix app instead of the Edge browser? The receiver showed Dolby Digital + and clicking the info button on the Denon receiver remote showed that the input signal surely was Dolby Digital +. This means the laptop was doing the decoding, not the receiver. This naturally means a PCM signal not Bitstream.

So complicated! Thank you again for your help!