How does surround sound work?

How do i get the sound to work on my surround sound system?

• me and my gf are trying to wach the boondoc saints in surround sound on my dvd player. on my dvd player you have to have surround sound for it to work. every thing works but the sound. i put the input for dvd but its not makeing sound when it needs to. how do i get it to work

• Answer:

  This is too vague, but it if all your hearing is stereo and you want to hear the stereo surround. There are two ways to do this. First of all, your disk must have the 5.1 surround encoding, If it plays back in 2.0 stereo, check to see if this is the default setting on the DVD. This can be checked by pressing the audio button on the remote or go to the setup menu on the DVD itself. Check audio, or languages or setup, dependig on what's on the menu. Often times DVDs will playbac default on the stereo surround channel, you have to select surround sound (if its available) yourself. If its not available, the best thing you can do is, press audio on the DVD remote to see if you can switch between different audio modes on the disc, again, if only stereo is present then thats all you get, however, you can simulate a surround sound on your surround system by changing the soundfields on your audio receiver. Play the dvd at a point that there are more than 1 types of audio (music, dialogue, sound effects) and scroll through the sound fields (usually concert hall, party, cathedral, movie, stadium, or similar) and choose the one that best utilizes all 5 speakers and does not sound hollow. Good luck