My DVD player is connected to my Harmon Kardon Receiver by a digital cable going to the digital input. I recently played a DVD of Andre Rieu and the Johanne Stauss Orchestra and expected really awesome sound to come out of my surround speakers but only got sound from my front speakers. The DVD says Dolbly Surround. Does anyone know why this is?

Welcome Micco!

My guess is that you either didn't setup the DVD itself to the surround mode or you had the H/K on the DVD 'stereo' mode? I've noticed most music DVDs have the audio defaulted to stereo unless you change it to a surround mode on the DVDs menu.

Beyond that, I couldn't tell you.

Are you in south Florida?

Forgive me for asking the obvious questions first.

Are you certain the disc said "Dolby Digital 5.1 surround," as opposed to simply saying "Dolby Digital"? Some discs are Dolby digital 2.0 only.

Many surround discs don't have that much information directed to the surround speakers. Did you put your ear up close to them to see if you could hear any ambient sound coming from them, or merely dead silence.

Did you go to the DVD's menu, and select "setup" or "languages," or something similar, and select the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround option? Some discs default automatically to this selection, some don't.

If you have been getting good strong Dolby Digital 5.1 surround from other discs, you can just disregard the following dumb questions. Without knowing your level of expertise, or your past experiences, it's a little difficult to know what to suggest investigating.

Is the receiver's digital input into which your DVD player is connected (Optical #1, Coaxial #2, or whatever) assigned as the receiver's DVD digital input?

In your receiver's speaker setup menu have you told the receiver that you have surround speakers?

Yeah maybe it was just not recorded in more than 2 channel sound.

When I first got into SACD's, I made the same mistake because I thought that since it was a SACD, it was automatically a 5.1 channel disk, when in fact many of them are just 2 channel (and I actually prefer that now).

Micco, another welcome. You didn't specifically name the Rieu DVD in question and as Jack mentioned you should examine it carefully to see if it in fact has a DD 5.1 soundtrack. Also, even if it does and your player is set correctly, keep in mind that many classical DVDs(don't know about Rieu's)aren't intended to have "awesome" sound coming out of the surrounds. Rather than placing musicians discretely in the surround channels the surround content is simply general ambience from reflected sound, which is a relatively subtle effect which doesn't draw attention to itself.