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Playing surround sound in iTunes

Wanting to try out the new stuff in iTunes 8, I downloaded one of the free HD episodes available at the iTunes store (an episode of Monk). Upon playing it, I noticed that it had an option for surround playback. However, when choosing surround, I get nothing. I had my computer hooked up to my AV receiver, and the receiver plays surround from DVD player (the application, not a physical DVD player) just fine. Any ideas what I need to do to get surround working from iTunes?

Macbook 2.16 C2D, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Sep 10, 2008 2:15 PM

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20 replies

Sep 11, 2008 2:50 AM in response to Mandigal

Have you updated Quicktime to 7.5.5?

One of the new features is:

Surround sound. QuickTime Player can now play up to 24 channels of audio. With QuickTime 7, your Mac, and surround speakers, you can enjoy the full effect of your surround sound movie or game.

I don't know for sure, but that might make a difference.

Sep 11, 2008 8:28 AM in response to Klaus1

Hi -- was going through the same thing and found this -- you may need to get a different cable.

"Connect external speakers, headphones, or optical digital audio equipment. The headphone / line output jack accommodates optical digital audio output, analog audio output with a 24-bit, 44.1-192 kHz D/A converter, digital audio output up to 24-bit stereo and 44.1-192 kHz sampling rate and supporting encoded digital audio output (AC3 and DTS). For analog headphone / line output a standard audio cable with 3.5mm metal plug should be used. *For digital audio, a standard toslink cable with a toslink mini-plug adapter can be used."*

Sep 15, 2008 2:33 AM in response to dman123

Having the exact same issue,

linked my MacBook via mini toslink to my yamaha receiver, iDVD works fine in 5.1 surround sound, iTunes only seems to pass the stereo pcm signal. Stereo works with iTunes via the toslink cable, but when I switch to the surround sound option in iTunes, the receiver does not get anything. Switch back to stereo-> signal turns back on an sound is there, as I mentioned the exact same setup works when I use a standard 5.1 DVD and play it with the apple DVD player. In iTunes I tried the HD Versions of 30Rock and Office...

Help? Any ideas?

Sep 21, 2008 7:35 AM in response to HighTechToolFan

I appreciate everyone's thoughts on my original question, but unfortunately it looks like there are still several of us with this problem and no solution yet discovered. Thanks to those who suggested the toslink cable and Quicktime 7.5.5, but I do have both of those. I'll keep trying to figure this out and will let you all know if I discover something.

Oct 3, 2008 8:02 AM in response to Mandigal

Hi there,

Stuck in the same problem here, and i think there is no solution until Apple "opens" that gate!
As a result of my investigations, i ended up on the developers page of Perian a 3rdparty Quicktime Component for AC3 playback and much more. As the "background" part of iTunes the problem can only be solved in Quicktime.
More information and a solution 😉 here:

http://www.cod3r.com/2008/03/wheres-real-ac3-passthrough-on-the-mac/

Just my opinion, but i think it's pure Logic:
The fact that the AppleTV can do what the Mac can't do, is the proof that they want to sell more Apple Tv's.
If Apple continues to do that....that would mean that you have to buy an AppleTV to watch the movies offered in the iTunes Store!!!

This is disappointing!

Oct 7, 2008 5:02 PM in response to Eremitski

Eremitski wrote:
i think there is no solution until Apple "opens" that gate!
As a result of my investigations, i ended up on the developers page of Perian a 3rdparty Quicktime Component for AC3 playback and much more. As the "background" part of iTunes the problem can only be solved in Quicktime.


So are you saying Apple doesn't want surround to work through iTunes, only with an AppleTV? This is quite frustrating all my privately encoded 5.1 videos work perfectly 😟

Any other updates?

Oct 7, 2008 5:06 PM in response to Mandigal

I agree it does suck really bad, to say the least!

That Apple only allow certain movies to rented in HD through the Apple TV is fair game because they announce the color straight on the iTunes Store, but this is really sad. Hope they change their policy soon. I mean, I had to search highs and lows to know what the real deal was...

In the end, it won't stop me from buying content on the iTunes Store, but i'm just disappointed... Thanks to everyone for their answers

Playing surround sound in iTunes

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