Question Not getting surround sound with PS4

[Collider74]

Hi.
I have a Denon X2600H connected to a 5.1 speaker system.
When watching movies on the 4K DVD player I get sound out of all speakers. However, when using the PS4, sound is only coming from the 2 main front speakers. Nothing from the centre speaker or the rear speakers.

Any ideas what I need to do to make this work?

Thanks.

 

[dante01]

Use the following to configure the PS4's audio output:

Setting your Sony Playstation 4 to output Bitstream Audio (Dolby Digital / DTS)

denon.custhelp.com

Also ensure that the AV receiver isn't set to its STEREO mode while set to the PD4 source. Each source can have its own mode setting that may differ to the mode or modes you've set other sources to. Press and gold the MODE buttons on the remote to bring up the menus that list these modes. Select the mode you'd like to be used in conjunction with that source from these lists.

 

[Collider74]

Thanks. OK so this is really weird. I’d already applied those settings to the PS4 but hadn’t tried a movie (since we have a 4K DVD player connected to the AVR, we don’t use the PS4 for movies). It turns out when watching a blu-ray movie on the PS4, I do get surround sound. But when playing games I don’t. E.g. Battlefield 1. 🤔 Any suggestions? Is it game dependent?

 

[dante01]

Games will be output as multichannel PCM. This allows the console to mix sounds it creates into the audio sourced via the game. This is normal practice for games if outputting the audio via HDMI. The resulting multichannel PCM is simply the formatted audio decoded by the console as opposed to the formatted audio being bitstreamed to the AV receiver for the AV receiver to decode.

You can force the consaole to bitstream the audio, but you'd then be losing the sounds created by the console during games playback.

You'll more than likely find that the game audio is in fact multichannel PCM as opposed to being just 2 channel PCM.