Great forum here. I hope someone out there has a solution for my 5.1 passthrough problems. I have read everything that I can find regarding spdif passthrough and I just can't get it to work with my set-up. I'm ready to try some different hardware solutions, but I thought that I would throw this question out to the group to see where I've gone wrong.

I'm running a HTPC with XPmce which is used mostly for watching and recording TV, and playing DVD's, DVD playback can be from the hard drive or the LG DVD drive.

System Specs;
OS - XPmce with all updates
CPU- P4-3.0Ghz
Mem- 1Gb
MB - Intel btx D915GMH
Tuner- ATI dual tuner
Video - Nvidia Geforce 6600 (s-video out direct to TV)
Sound - Turtle beach riviera with optical Spdif out
Receiver- Kenwood VR-505

My problem is that I can't get surround sound out to the Kenwood. If I connect a standalone DVD player to the Kenwood via digital co-ax I get great sound. If I connect the HTPC to the Kenwood via toslink optical all I can get is stereo.

I've gone through all settings listed here;
http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/kb_ftp/587316691.asp
and the faq here;
http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/kb_ftp/587418069.asp

It doesn't matter if I play the DVD from MCE or PowerDVD the sound is stereo.

I'm ready to give up on this configuration but I don't want to spend more money unless I know it will work. Do I replace the sond card? receiver? something else?

I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make this work but I want some assurance that I will end up with a workable solution. Help please, all of your opinions and experience is appreciated.

GJ