Mac mini (Mid 2010) HDMI & DTS-HD

There is NO WAY to pass DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD in OSX OR Win7 via Bootcamp. I tried with a mid-2010 17" MBP.

Until one of the software companies releases a "blu-ray" osx player, we're all on Win7. It really doesn't make any sense since Apple sits on the Blu-ray board, step up Apple!

bump... cause I want to know too!

On the OSX side, you can achieve dolby ac3 and DTS bitstream pass through one of two ways. (1) Use VLC and enable the SPDIF option in prefs, (2) use QuickTime Player after following these directions...
http://www.cod3r.com/2008/02/the-correct-way-to-enable-ac3-passthrough-with-quic ktime/

I don't know about making this work in a windows virtual machine. I suspect you would perhaps have to boot fully into windows (via boot camp) to get this kind of thing working. But I'm not even sure if apple provides the necessary drive for windows for the digital sound output on the mini (or any macs).

The new 2010 Mac Mini absolutely does both bitstream and LPCM over HDMI out (up to 8 channels). I haven't tried DTS-HD in particular yet, but bitstream DTS and AC3 work (no Perian or other 'hack' needed), or straight uncompressed (tried up to 6 channel AAC discrete).

That, and finally being able to UNDERscan the picture made me upgrade to it from the 2009 version.

Cheers,
dan

Are you perhaps using VLC?

Because on my 2010 Mini, connected to my Denon AVR-3808CI, I had to do the Perian "hack" to get DTS and AC3 passthrough working from quicktime player. VLC worked with just a checkbox in the prefs to enabled SPDIF.

A) I don't think anyone can say (because there is no ability to play bluray from OSX).

And...

B) Unless you plan on storing bluray movies as uncompressed on your mac media center (and we're talking about 30, 40, or perhaps even 50 gigs of space), it doesn't really matter.

Because most people who keep their movies on hard drives, keeps them in a recompressed state. That means the master audio bitstream would get reduced to something else.

Regarding (a), I didn't say that no one cares about the answer to the question. I merely said that no one has the answer at this time with regard to OSX.

Running Windows is a separate question. Because, even if Windows does support master audio, there's no guarantee that it will on Apple hardware (to my knowledge, Apple has not yet released windows drivers for the new mini with HDMI). And another question is whether or not it will work as a virtual machine, or if you'll need to boot into Windows via BootCamp.

All that said.... Answering these question with windows on mac hardware is certainly feasible and, as you said, someone will undoubtedly do it eventually. I haven't heard of anyone doing it as of yet, however.

Do you try in windows with MPHC and FFDSHOW ? ( ffdshow has an option that passtrough DTS HD and Dobly MA by hdmi port )

I will try both bootcamp and paralells 5.0 (just bought it P5)
The question is can I make a mac mini (2009) play an external usb blu-ray player on the mac mini, so far no in mac os mode, now will load windows 7 and try it.

I have also updated the ram in the mac mini to 4gb.

Currently I have my PC (quad core) and NAS cat5 to my mac mini I use as a media extender, and am wondering the same thing. I think it will come down to the overhead needed to play the blu ray, so will research and then try parallels 5 as I think it uses less resource than bootcamp in snow leopard.. .

The other option is to use a laptop connect the blue ray to it then the laptop to a DMI switch box, with the laptop being connected but a bit sloppy.

using sony external dual USB blu ray player and running windows 7 on the mac mini in parallels 5 I cannot get the blu-ray to play, though it can see the player and will play dvds from it, tried vlc and powerdvd 10 so far. Cannot tell if it is software or other .

Completed my testing.. My mission was to watch a non ripped blu ray on my mac using a USB external blu ray player, Sony/NEC JV edition.

:confused:

*Short Version - There appears no way to play a blu ray on a mac unless you rip it.* Period ... but I tried really.

*Detailed Version*

Did some testing today, on a new 4gb mac mini w/ snow leopard and a USB External mac friendly 'labeled' external sony/nec blu ray player. I use the mac mini as a media extender connected to my 52" plasma and back to my 'PC Config'

The 'PC config' is cat5 connected via GIGe from the mac mini back to a Apple Extreme that acts as a network hub connecting to my NAS, (2x2tb raid) & PC (Windows 7 on Quad core 8gb ram 20TB HD (5x 2TB internal and 5 x 2TB external) NAS and ADSL2+ Internet (got all that).

Here are my results; no surprises.

Litmus Test : On a windows 7 PC it lets you play a blu ray disc on it (go figure) or dvd/cd of course.
Test 2 On the Mac it plays a dvd only
Test 3 On the Mac running window 7 in parallels it plays a dvd only
Test 4 On the Mac running windows 7 in boot camp it plays a dvd only
Test 5 On the Mac networked to a PC with the blu ray drive shared it plays a dvd only
Test 6 On the Mac networked to a PC with the blu ray drive shared it plays a dvd only in Parallels 5 and Windows 7
Test 7 On the Mac networked to a PC with the blu ray drive shared it plays a dvd only in boot camp running Windows 7

Software used for windows 7 (pc and in MAC vm) VLC, and Cyberlink Power DVD 10. The mac will run an MKV file (ripped blu ray no problem), too mcuh trouble, I just want to play a blu ray.

Hope to avoid buying another blu ray player.

Thanks for your experience, but the topic is about it mac mini unibody can passtrough audio HD aka DTS HD, Dolby Master by Hdmi to A/v receiver, by the way thanks again always is good another point of view ...