Mac mini (Mid 2010) HDMI & DTS-HD

Sorry but with a MB Pro is impossible to passtrough Audio HD ( dolby master or dts hd ) because the only way is it have an hdmi (1.3) port that MB´s doesn´t came with it , now the only mac product with hdmi port is the new mac mini unibody ...

I don't think the new Mac Mini 2010 Unibody can output Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio HD either.

Forgive my ignorance,

On a 2009 mac mini playing blu ray ripped or in bootcamp 3.1 running win7 and playing blu-ray native (now preferred by me using a usb blu ray player on the mac mini) there is no HDMI of course, but I get great sound via the optical cable, & display port (both mac and pc mode) with great sound.

Interestingly I found that Dolby was turned off on the snow leopard side by default in disc set-up and the software for windows 7 I use (power dvd 10) has various simulated modes but works well via my DRS system as well.

I find the dedicated PC Win 7 side has better sound then the Mac side.

So isn't optical and Mini DP better than HDMI alone?
Or could you use HDMI and optical ?
HDMI = 2010
MiniDP = 2009

Isn't that better than HDMI alone anyhow?
thread using power dvd 10 and an usb external blue ray player there is a

..

null

Pushing my knowledge here.

Just completed getting win 7 bootcamp running a blu-ray player native on a 2009 mac mini. Now either playing a ripped blu-ray in snow leopard (MKV or ISO) or native in win 7 I get great sound via the optical cable, & display port (both mac and pc mode)of course I have no HDMI on the 2009 so have no choice.

On a Mini 2010 there is HDMI of course but isn't the better quality Mini DP and Optical audio out anyhow ?? (2009 or 2010)

BTW I found that Dolby was turned off on the snow leopard side by default in disk set-up and the software for windows 7 (I use power dvd 10) seems more feature rich, and works very well via my 5.1 system as well.

I find the dedicated PC Win 7 side has better sound then the Mac side and uses less resource to play native vs ISO or MKV ripped.

Though I am running the older 2009 it is beefed up with 8gb ram
So isn't optical and Mini DP better than HDMI alone?
Or could you use HDMI and optical ?

There is no choice on the 2009 I guess (no HDMI)
If I read correctly connecting the mac mini to a 52" 1080p plasma as I am doing Mini DP is just as good as HDMI, and with the optical out then I guess the sound would be better?

Test 4 was done wrong and I now have a blu ray usb player working fine on Windows 7 on a 2009 mac mini. Getting the order right and getting boot camp and windows 7 fine tuned to work with remotes, and BT mouse and keyboard was not easy.

So now I have a choice mac/snow leopard/blu ray ripped or
mac/bootcamp/win 7 no ripping.
Though I have loads of storage I like the option of ripping (my own BR) or playing native.

hi
So I ask again, why would you want to use HDMI for sound, e.g why not optical out, and what format are you trying to play the ripped blu ray in, I assume you have perian installed, and that is about as good as it gets per below. But once installed I can play mkv native also via front row.


perian=

* File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
* Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
* Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
* AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
* Subtitle support for SSA/*** and SRT

Message was edited by: mr-internet

I think the confusion seems to be between DTS and DTS HD. DTS is the older standard format along with Dolby Digital and optical can output it fine as long as the source material has a DTS soundtrack. DTS HD and also Dolby True HD require a much higher bandwidth which cannot be supported by optical and you need HDMI for that.

Speaking of the Mini-Displayport.... This connection is capable of (bandwidth capable)to bitstream DTS-HD & TrueHD "IF & ONLY IF" OS X software supported it.

Unfortunately at this time there is no Blu-Ray playback software for OS X. And that would be necessary to bitstream these two HD Audio formats since they are only found on Blu-Ray discs.

HDMI 1.3 is also fully capable of bitstreaming both HD Audio formats. But Apple chooses MDP as their preferred technology due to no royalty fees.

Optical is NOT CAPABLE of bitstreaming HD Audio period. This technology does not have the necessary bandwidth to make it happen.

Even though Apple sits on the Blu-Ray board, they choose to not implement the technology at this time. In Jobs opinion, Blu-ray is short lived and pure digital media is the future. Even IF this IS the direction Apple wants to go, then they should be on the forefront of developing and perfecting 1080P playback along with support for DTS HD & TrueHD.

But all we see in their products is 8x "super" drive.... ***??? 8x are you kidding me? Isn't there like 48X now? I think the Flintstones had 8x playback....

interesting ,

Forgive my mac and HD 'noob-ness'

I am getting 5.1 separation and optical is sounding much better (by a mile) than what I was doing before which is 3.5mm to to RCA split back to my dolby 5.1

Using power dvd 10 (for pc) also adds some interesting filters.

If this is OS related and not hardware related then when I am easily playing blu-rays in windows 7 on the mac mini via bootcamp 3.1 , isn't this golden chalice of sound achieved. ???



\ isn't this then achievable in boot camp running say windows 7, where blu-ray plays perfect. On running/testing on my blu-rays on 5.1 sound direct

What you are sending is DTS only and NOT DTS-HD. To the best of my knowledge the current MBP & Mini don't have the PAVP (Protected Audio Video Path) necessary to "allow" DTS-HD or TrueHD to bitstream.

The ONLY video card that supports PAVP is ATI 5xxx cards which is not in the mini nor the current MBP's. It is however in the new 27" iMac which I have ordered. I will be installing Win7 via bootcamp and will test if I can bitstream the HD Audio's with it. This is the only Mac that "is capable" via Windows 7. I'm also using Arcsoft Total Media Theater for Blu-Ray playback along with a USB Blu-Ray player.

A Mac Mini would be an incredible Home Theater PC if only Apple would use an ATI 5xxx series card built-in. None of the NVidia cards to date are PAVP capable which is ridiculous.

Thanks for that I kept seeing it was software related & could not understand. But this makes more sense

Running OS X it is both a hardware & software issue.

Windows 7 (bootcamp) it is only a hardware limitation/issue.

I can hear where Jobs is coming from with regards to pure digital media. I rip all of my Blu-Ray's to my 20TB Win7 media server so I'm all about going digital, but Apple isn't even driving this arena either. They're kind of sitting back and letting everyone else pioneer the media genre (music aside). If Apple could do for digital Blu-Ray what they've done for MP3's, then they would be unstoppable. Apple should revolutionize this genre, it is needed, but storage is the issue currently.

Blu-Ray's ripped to ISO are 20GB-50GB each movie so you can't cram many into TB drives. But with 2TB drives already getting more affordable, it's only a matter of a couple of years before we see large enough HDD to store these large files. Also 802.11N isn't fast enough to provide stutter free Blu-Ray playback WITH DTS-HD. My media server is hard wired (Gigabit) network.

Now on-top of 2D Blu-Ray we've got 3D Blu-Ray trying to emerge which requires even more bandwidth.

Ripping copy protected Blu-ray discs is illegal, so you can't really expect Apple to support such an operation. The Mac mini's forte at present is as a home media server for streaming from legitimate sources, none of which provide content with DTS-HD sound as far as I am aware. Even the IPTV services that stream video at 1080p appear to be in the habit of paring down the audio to save bandwidth.

For the average home user looking for an HD capable computer to use as a media server they can connect directly to their A/V system via HDMI without having to use adapters, the Mac mini is arguably the best choice, albeit a slightly overpriced one.