Simultaneous audio over HDMI and line out optical

Anyone know if this is possible on the new mini?

I currently use an AppleTV with HDMI to TV and optical digital to my older surround processor which does not accept HDMI.

AppleTV is useful in that it outputs audio simultaneously over all audio connections - I suspect new Mac Mini might only allow single audio output at a time.

Mac Pro 8x3.0GHz 14GB, Mac OS X (10.5.8), iPad, iPhones, otyer Macs, various non-Mac computers

Posted on Jul 9, 2010 12:35 PM

19 replies

Sep 11, 2010 1:48 PM in response to Alley_Cat

I just bumped into this limitation too. I've been using HDMI but now I want to play music to my stereo without having to have my TV on to pass through the audio. So, I connect an optical cable. I now realize that I must manually switch the audio output from HDMI to line-out optical. Having to switch back and forth constantly as I switch between video and music would be annoying. Although, I suppose I could leave it on optical all the time. As long as having separate paths for video and audio doesn't introduce lip-sync issues, I guess that would work.

MacProCT

Level 2

366 points

Sep 12, 2010 10:07 PM in response to switchbacker

Seems to me that your easiest choices are to either always have the TV on (with the receiver getting its audio from the TV), or route the audio to the receiver first and use it for "TV" sound, as well as music.

In my system, I do the latter.

Ziatron

Level 5

4,214 points

Jul 10, 2010 10:20 PM in response to Alley_Cat

I suspect new Mac Mini might only allow single audio output at a time.

True, but WHY are the audio outputs crippled?

Doesn't seem very consumer friendly to me.

MacProCT

Level 2

366 points

Jul 13, 2010 5:22 AM in response to Ziatron

No. That is totally unrelated.

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Simultaneous audio over HDMI and line out optical