How do I hook up my computer to my surround sound system?

Can you hook up a surround sound system to your computer?

• Answer:

  A lot of the new motherboards coming out now have surround sound built into them with the outputs jacks on the motherboard. If you have an older machine than Creative Labs has the best offering of internal and external sound cards with surround sound. Most of the external cards work through USB which is a nice simple connection. In order to hear surround sound from a PC you need three things: 1. Sound card capable of outputting surround sound. Note that you have to configure the card for what output you want via the Control Panel (assuming Windows machine) and double-click "Sound and Audio Devices". Click the Advance button at the bottom of the 'Sounds' tab page. That's all for Windows versions other tha Vista. 2. Software application that can play in surround sound mode. When you buy a sound card with surround sound it will include some player software that will play in surround sound. They have to do that otherwise you might not have something installed that will play your dvd's or surround cd's in surround. Later versions od PowerDVD, WinDVD and I think Windows Media support surround sound. Creative Labs suplies something called the Mediasource player. You may also have to go into the software configuration setup to enable the surround sound. 3. The third thing you need is media that is actually encoded in surround sound which is most dvd's and there also are some surround sound music cd's. DTS (dts.com) has a lot ofthose and they sound great. When you play a dvd you have to select the surround sound track. If this all sounds a little confusing it is because it is sometimes. Good luck. Be patient and check the connections and read the manuals.