Capturing 5.1 sound from tv box

[BobetteBob]

Hi!

I would like to know which ''cheap'' (200$ or less) video capture card would be able to record 5.1 sound from the cable tv box

I have bought that one and cannot get it to work so far:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CLNHT29F?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

As soon as I plug my hdmi cable in the hdmi splitter the sound on my amplifier/tv moves from 5.1 to stereo so that tells me that the video capture card does not want 5.1 sound... I read on this forum on another post that using a splitter with EDID would force the capture card to get the 5.1 but I don't have that knowledge yet...

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks and have a nice day

[BobetteBob]

Little update on my research, I asked a lot of sellers from amazon and only one told me that their card was capable of 5.1 audio recording. This is what they said:

it is HDMI pass-through, so it can capture the 5.1 sound. if you want to record 5.1 sound ,please choice the sound setup of your capture software.

And this is the card:
https://www.amazon.ca/DiamondTiger-HDMI-Capture-Streaming-Recording/dp/B0D9W79TY2/ref=...p?ie=UTF8&th=1

Do you think the ''HDMI pass-through'' is what would get this to record in 5.1?

Thanks again for any help!

[pandy]

Use S/PDIF (or TOSLink) output and appropriate capture solution (audio card allowing bitstream capture or if you are skilled cheap logic analyzer like Saleae clone for example; https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Analyzer-Ferrite-Channel-Arduino/dp/B077LSG5P2/ ).

Perhaps there is even easier and cheaper way - found this; https://github.com/elehobica/pico_spdif_recorder so using cheap RPi Pico board with some card or perhaps USB present on Pico should be OK for S/PDIF capture.

[BobetteBob]

Ok little update, I have bought this EDID splitter:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07VP37KMB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Now my TV amplifier stays on 5.1 which is good! but no sound is going to my capture card... I don't thinks it's OBS related so even if this card is supposed to be HDMI pass-through... looks like it's not... Now I might have to find a S/PDIF sound capture card...

[BobetteBob]

Use S/PDIF (or TOSLink) output and appropriate capture solution (audio card allowing bitstream capture or if you are skilled cheap logic analyzer like Saleae clone for example; https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Analyzer-Ferrite-Channel-Arduino/dp/B077LSG5P2/ ).

Perhaps there is even easier and cheaper way - found this; https://github.com/elehobica/pico_spdif_recorder so using cheap RPi Pico board with some card or perhaps USB present on Pico should be OK for S/PDIF capture.

thanks for the reply, I have search and so far did not found any card that specified the 5.1 capture ability

[pandy]

thanks for the reply, I have search and so far did not found any card that specified the 5.1 capture ability

Card need to support accurate (perfect) bitstreaming capture capability - 5.1 audio is compressed so audio card will not recognize any compressed audio format and from audio card this is not different than regular PCM (ok, it can be recognized but still with bit accurate capture this is irrelevant).
Usually S/PDIF pass 5.1 compressed audio with bitrate typical to 48kHz, 2 channel, 16 bit PCM so if you set your capture device for such configuration then it should work fine.