Summary
Instructions for resolving the issue of 5.1/7.1 Surround Sound options are not selectable when connecting an Intel® NUC to your Home Theater System.
Description
When connecting your Intel® NUC to your Home Theater System, you are not able to select the 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound options in your Windows sound settings, even though your surround sound system supports 5.1 or 7.1.
Resolution
- Connect your Intel® NUC Home Theater PC to your 5.1/7.1 Home Theater System (HDMI hub / AV Receiver) via HDMI cable
- Start Windows*
- Download these third party applications:
- Unzip the Custom Resolution Utility* (cru-<version>.zip)
- Unzip Analog Way EDID Editor* (aw_edideditor_setup_<version>_windows.zip)
- Install Monitor Asset Manager* (me_setup.exe)
- Open MonInfo (aka Monitor Asset Manager) as Administrator, from the Start Menu
- Ensure your TV's Make/Model information is shown.
- Select File -> Save As. Set file name and save as type "DI binary file (*.bin)", to a location of your choice
- Close the Monitor Asset Management application
- Open AW EDID Editor as Administrator, from the Start Menu
- Open the EDID bin file saved in MonInfo, using File -> Open
- Enable EDID Extension CEA-861-F by clicking that tab.
- Choose OK on the Pop-up
- Add Audio and Speaker Allocation from Block types to Instantiated block using "+"
- Select Audio in Instantiated blocks and update the Audio descriptors to match your Home Theater system.
- Select Format. Linear PCM and AC-3 are common. You can add more formats by selecting "+" in right corner of Audio descriptors box.
- For 5.1, set the number of channels to six
- For 7.1, set the number of channels to eight
- Select Bit depth and Supported Frequencies
- Select Speaker allocation from Instantiated blocks, and select your speaker configuration.
- Save the updated EDID configuration by selecting File -> Save As. We recommend choosing a new name for this file.
- Open CRU (Custom Resolution Utility) as Administrator, from the location you extracted the archive in step 3.
- Import the updated bin file, by selecting the Import button in the bottom left.
- Ensure the Extension blocks section contains CTA-861 data blocks.
- Export the EDID override configuration as EXE by selecting Export in the bottom left
- Execute the EXE created by the Custom Resolution Utility as Administrator
- Select Install EDID
- Reboot system
- Open sound settings from the task bar. You should be able to select your Surround Sound setting.
Additional information
This EDID override is unique to your TV and AV Receiver/HDMI hub. If you change out any of those components you may have to repeat this process.
More information about Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) can be found here.