Outputting 5.1 Channel Surround Sound from your Mac

well i have to apologize, somehow today when i turned my reciever on, the option to select sound from reciever was there. And i didnt change anything. So i'm good to go. Anyway, I appreciate you trying to help and for posting these instructions.

Can you help me here, as I was checking a solutuion for my problem for longtime, which is as below.

I have a MBP 2011 model with OSX 10.7 installed in it. I use the toshilink optical cable to connect to my 5.1 but I am not getting the surround sound. The 5.1 option in MidiSetup is not enabled, its grayed out. Can anyone help me out plz. Thanks.

I'm currently unable to output anything other than stereo. From what I've gathered from this thread it's because I'm using HDMI to output video and audio, and not just one or the other. I have my Mac hooked up to my 60" by way of HDMI. The HDMI cable goes from my mac mini to my reciever, then the reciever outputs to the TV. It works fine vide-wise, but I don't know why it won't allow 5.1 surround like it should.

Is it because it thinks it's a monitor and will only output stereo? If so that's something that needs to be fixed. Why SHOULDN'T I be able to output video and audio from the same cable just like I do with my Xbox and PS3?

I have no idea what a thunderbolt cable is, and I have no other video outputs on the mac mini other than HDMI, so I'm a little confused as to how someone is supposed to even be able to output surround sound from this device. When I go through the motions detailed in this thread I can ONLY select stereo.

I have the exact same issue with the same setup. I know my unit can output at 5.1 because it works with my PS3, which is connected to the same receiver in the same manner as my iMac is connected... I'm thinking it must be something on Apple's end, maybe the computer does think the device is an external monitor or TV, as my receiver is always displayed as "LCD".

I should probably just call Apple support one of these days and see if they have any other suggestions. If anyone does have a solution, please share!

Lance,

You mentioned that it takes an app to tell the difference between PCM and Dolby, and devices like the PS3/cable box can decode between the formats... Do you know of a way to do this (an app) so programs like FCPX are able to output in surround?

Thanks

Hey Waldo,

as far as I know there is no interim app that will automatically detect whether it's PCM or Dolby audio coming out of your Mac. To get PCM surround sound working with fcp x or logic you have to set it up in the audio midi set up for surround sound like others of said in the posts here then start a surroundsound project with Final Cut Pro X and you should get the discreet audio outputs. When you set up your audio midi setup to the proper surround settings your a/v amp should automatically switch to PCM audio surround before you even launch any apps you should be able to see 5.1 channel selection on your amp. I Understand what you're saying about the PS3 automatically switching between PCM and Dolby like a Blu-ray disc with PCM or a DVD with Dolby. If you leave your Mac set to PCM surround and then run VLC with a movie with Dolby surround and select the proper output within VLC your amp should do the auto switch to Dolby and then back to PCM once the movie stops. I have not really tried this but my guess is that is what will happen.

So that really is the same as what the PS3 does, it's the amp that does the switching depending on what digital signal it sees.

Here's an idea, try removing your television from the equation and just have your av amp connected to your Mac. Then if it shows up as the AV amp not LCD TV try plugging the TV while everything is turned on and see what happens there.

I have my macbookpro connected directly to my av amp then the ampt to the TV. My pioneer plasma doesn't have any speakers. Perhaps there is some kind of pass through going on because your tv has speakers, try and set the TV audio in to analog so they are not seen by the amp, I know I'm reaching here but my guess is your tv is taking control of the audio some how.

I've followed your guide and I'm getting noise out of all my speakers (5.1) when I click on the test buttons in the Audio MIDI Setup. When I'm trying to do a 5.1 sound test from youtube or when I try to play a .MKV file I'm only getting sound out of two speakers, any ideas that can help me?

I used 48000.0 HZ and 8ch-16bit Integer so that I could choose 5.1 in the dropdown meny in Audio MIDI Setup.

VLC should be able to output the surround track of a .mkv file. I have never tried surround off YouTube.

Again the audio midi setup surround settings 5.1 etc are for when you are using apps like logic and Final Cut Pro.

If yo are using VLC selecting the proper audio track and output in vlc's preferences should auto switch your amp to surround mode. I have found that iTunes only does surroundsound if you purchased or rent a movie from iTunes, if it was a video that you converted with handbrake and it has a surround track iTunes still won't play that surround track but VLC will.

My comments were based on mini display port to hdmi, not toslink, but I just currently connected with toslinki so will do some testing with it when I get some time. And see what the differences are. I guess not all macs are created equal when it comes to surround sound and then you have all the different AV amps as part of the mix.

I've managed to get 5.1 out of my speakers when watching the .mkv file but I'm still not able to get 5.1 out off the YouTube Video (The exact same video plays just fine in 5.1 when I watch it from my PS3 connected to the same receiver).

Thank you for the guide btw without it I would still have been stuck with my old 2.0 setup.

That seems really strange to me 😝 will I be able to have both cables connected at the same time and do I need to do some kind of switching / settings fixing when going from watching a YouTube video to a .mkv file?