Monitoring 5.1 Output: USB Optical?

Nathan_Shane wrote on 5/24/2004, 7:50 PM
Okay, reading through the Help files and this forum has me still scratching my head in confusion.

Can Vegas 5 output a USB "optical" 5.1 mix for monitoring without any additional encoders?

Here's the setup...

I found a USB 5.1 "optical" output adapter which allows me to come out of Vegas and connect directly to the "optical-input" of my DVD Player/Surround System.

Under Vegas, this device shows up as "Direct Sound Surround Mapper" and under the Control Panel of Windows, I have the Advanced Driver settings set for 5.1 Surround.

The problem is that only the Front L/R Speakers are playing back, none of the other speakers output anything.

So my question(s) is this...

Is Vegas 5 capable of outputing a "digital" surround signal either coaxial/optical without any additional software? I was hoping the use the optical input of my home 5.1 system and skip having to purchase another soundcard and speakers to go with it.