I got a 5.1 DVD player (Panasonic SA-PT470) for cheap (it is old, so no HDMI ARC, mind you) I am trying to connect it to my laptop (Windows 11) but I am not even sure if the way I got it set up will even work at all.
My laptop is sending video to my TV through HDMI and the TV is sending audio to the player through an optical cable, it works just fine when running apps like Netflix on the TV itself, but when I try to play a game on my laptop, which is the main purpose I got the system for, the surround speakers mimic the front ones, and the center one does not even play, the subwoofer works though. Essentially it is like playing audio on stereo.
I am thinking the laptop cannot detect that there is a 5.1 audio output since the TV gets in the way, when I look at audio settings on the control panel it is like if I only had a stereo system hooked up.
If that is the case, is there a way to maybe force the laptop to send a 5.1 audio signal even if it cannot detect the speakers?
And as I have said, the player does not support ARC, but even if it did I think I would run into the same problem since the TV would still get in the way
