Mac Mini 5.1 surround sound

uymanuyman
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Sorry if this is posted somewhere else, but if I put a mac mini with my entertainment unit, is there a way to play surround sound from DVD's through the audio out port on the mac mini? Do I need any special software or hardware? I can't say I know a whole lot about how surround sound works. Or is this what airport express is for? Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    ransomedransomed Posts: 169member
    Your mac mini will only play stereo sound. If you want to play surround out of it you need an external device that will connect to a USB port on your mac, but I haven't heard of such a thing, not to say that it doesn't exist.



    The aiport express is a wireless network device.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    You'd need something like this probably http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html assuming your stereo or entertainment center has a surround sound decoder.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I forget who, but some company is coming out with a Firewire based surround sound gadget. I used it with Unreal Tournament at Macworld and it was pretty cool.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    sworthysworthy Posts: 71member
    http://www.griffintechnology.com/pro...wave/index.php



    This is what you want. $99, uses firewire
  • Reply 5 of 7
    danielctulldanielctull Posts: 586member
    Somewhere I read that if you put a DTS encoded file into iTunes to play on an Airport Express unit connected via digital optical cable to a DTS decoder, then it would play surround sound. If you could sort out the lag time of the wireless, and find an app that allows you to broadcast any sound (eg one from DVD Player?) to the Airport Express (I'm sure I have seen a few of them), then you could get surround sound through that. As long as you have the decoder that is...



    Oh and did I mention the wireless lagtime? \ Shame...
  • Reply 6 of 7
    mmmpiemmmpie Posts: 628member
    No one has suggested using dolby prologic. Its not as good as real 5.1 output, but with a nice 5.1 audio source to encode it should do a pretty good job.



    There is already a real time prologic encoder for winamp:

    http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=96751

    I dont think it works very well with stereo audio sources, but that wouldnt be the intended use for the encoder.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    uymanuyman Posts: 36member
    Thanks everyone! _That's a great help! _I'm not sure which one I'll get. _I'll look into it some more. _I'm just setting up my entertainment center and I do have a receiver that has surround sound decoding. _I just wasn't sure if the sound coming out of the audio out port contained all the right info to decode to surround sound.



    But I can't wait to replace my B&W G3. _I'm going to stick my mini next to my TV and use it to play movies, show slide shows from iPhoto and play music from itunes. _I'm planning on getting surround sound speakers and I just wanted to make sure it would work with the mini.



    I guess as I'm typing this I realize I could do all this with a powerbook or ibook but those cost more (I'm a penny pincher), I can just leave the mini there (as opposed to my wife's powerbook that we bring everywhere) and the mini will look so much better.



    Thanks again.
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