Does anybody know if the new mac mini introduced today will do hd audio bitstream?

The tech specs page only says "HDMI port supports multichannel audio output." Not sure what all that covers, other than stereo.. but I would sure hope that by this version they've included everything you'd find in a $99 WD Media Player.

I'll let you know next week.. I ordered one last night to use as a media center front end/Plex server.

Brian

The previous model supported multi-channel audio via the HDMI but did not officially support HD audio.

However I seem to recall that XBMC for Mac had already managed to do this on the previous model Mac mini. For clarification since XBMC for Mac managed to do this it would appear the hardware already could do this but Apple have not provided built-in software support for this.

See http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/42798-hd-audio-codec-support/

I could not find a similar statement saying Plex itself supports HD Audio bit-streaming via HDMI.

With regards to the new Mac mini I do not expect there to be any change. That is OS X itself will not support this, Plex will still not support this but I would still expect XBMC for Mac to support this.

PS. The MacBluRayPlayer I feel also does not support this.

The HD3000 graphics did not have the "protected" audio

path required for any HD audio.

When using, i.e. PowerDVD in bootcamp windows, it actually

decoded the HD audio and sent out PCM over HDMI.

On the Mac side, XBMC basically just extracted the non-HD

core from the DTS-HD, etc. and would just stream these bitstreams

over HDMI. It does not decode to multichannel. This is from

actual experience using XBMC for quite some time.

As for the HD4000, that remains to be seen whether the required

protected audio path is present on the new mini.

I'm interested in this also. HDFreak have you managed to test this?

Thanks

Tell me what program and/or content you're trying to play and I'll try it out. I use Plex and it plays DTS/Dolby flawlessly to my Onkyo receiver. But I know that's not he same as the True HD stuff.

I've found this site here:

http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/high-definition-trailers.php

Maybe something like this:

http://dl.demo-world.eu/download_hd.php?filename=hd_dts_orchestra_long_lossless. rar

Hi

I am running plex and I am wondering if anyone a a firm and definitive answer on wheter or not the late 2012 mac mini can output true HD audio to a recevier either via HDMI. And if yes, can you do this in iOS or do you need windows running?

Thanks

Sorry about the delayed response..

I tried several of the videos from the demo site you listed and didn't have any luck getting anything other than normal Dolby and DTS sound out. So, the 2012 mini does send out enough data for my Onkyo receiver to interpret Dolby and DTS 5.1 (I only have 5.1 set up currently) but nothing ever indicated "TrueDolby" like it does when I play through the stand alone BD player.

This was done only through Plex, so if you have another piece of (free) software you'd like me to try, I'd be more than happy to test it out.

Brian

Can you try the latest XBMC for Mac? It is similar to Plex, in fact Plex was original based on XBMC but they split some time ago and each does some things better than the other.

See http://xbmc.org/download/