Toslink woes

[ihateaudio]

I have a 2010 Mac mini. HDMI to monitor for video. Toslink to receiver for audio. The monitor and receiver are separate.

Options for 5.1 in the audio midi setup are greyed out even though toslink is directly connected to my onkyo 609 receiver. However if I connected it through hdmi, which I can't do permanently, then the surround settings show up.

I don't see why hdmi video to a monitor should have any bearing on the settings of the toslink audio. Is it possible to have video via hdmi to a monitor and have audio separately via toslink to a receiver and get 5.1.

Thanks......and yes this is driving me insane!!!!!!

[Y-Guy]

Are you going to a Monitor or TV? Is there a setting it needs for the TOSlink to be recognized? I know on my Panasonic I need to tell it where to get the audio from if its' not from the HDMI plug.
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[macmanmacman]

Actually it depends on several items if your surround sound system auto detects it's connection when connected and switched to toslink it will gray out everything because it has detected the max your surround sound receiver can handle had the same thing with my pioneer dts surround sound system when enabled the mini won't let you change jack

[ihateaudio]

The hdmi is going to a sony bravia tv and the toslink is connected directly to the receiver. The gaming computer via toslink does 5.1 fine and the mac mini does stereo fine but not 5.1.

The mini will do 5.1 if a dvd is put in and is encoded in 5.1 so it can do surround sound and the toslink is working but the audio midi setup options for 5.1 are always greyed out which makes non-dvd 5.1 not work.

[Smithcraft]

What are you using for playback?

SC
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[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8

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Make sure it has pins!

[ihateaudio]

Im using MplayerX for videos with 5.1 soundtracks. When connected via hdmi to the receiver audio midi setup shows 5.1 options yet as soon as I connect via toslink the mac only does stereo.

[macmanmacman]

Ahhhh!!!!

Did you think it might be a error in the software you are using

[macmanmacman]

Ok i got it I know whats wrong!!!!

Ok i need to know somethings about your mac mini

1. you must be running lion or mountain lion beta for mplayerx to function correctly.

Here is what you do.

go into preferences in mplayerx

Select audio

de check remix DTS to stereo.

Then select in the box below dts or ac3 depends on what you are going to use dolby surround sound 5.1 is not a availible option you need 5.1 dts which is dolby true surround sound.

then on the box below it select never reset save as preferences

nice job on this app works great with my dts pioneer

[ihateaudio]

Thanks but its not a MplayerX issue. In the Macs audio midi setup I cannot select surround sound options which forces stereo on youtube, mplayerx, etc. But when I connect to the receiver via hdmi then the surround settings are selectable.

For some reason the mac is not detecting 5.1 through toslink, it only sees it via hdmi.

[macmanmacman]

Oh wow question i take it your using HDMI right to connect it to your tv/monitor right is it the 2010 mini with the hdmi and the mini display port or the 2011 mini without the cd drive the reason i ask if it is the 2011 mini you need a thunderbolt display or the sound comes out of the hdmi port only on the 2010 mac mini unibody you can use the hdmi and toslink together.

it was a not so nice change to the mini's after they removed the cd drive

[macmanmacman]

i answered my own question you are on a 2010 same problem i had i had to purchase a mini display port adapter and use a hdmi to dvi converter on my tv in order for the unit to send surround sound

[ez061111]

You shouldn't need to select any 5.1 in The Audio Midi Setup. Just verify you are 2 channel 24 bit for passthrough and digital out. You should be able to select in System Preferences -> Audio -> Output which way it is sent, in your case toslink. This is how I have mine setup for DTS and AC-3 5.1
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[macmanmacman]

i have the same setup but in lion and in mountain lion when hdmi is connected on certain model numbers of the 2010 mac mini they auto go to hdmi sound and you cannot select anything in sound settings also you cannot adjust the audio level as well.

[ihateaudio]

So it is a mac issue which auto selects the hdmi sound instead of recognizing the toslink settings when hdmi is plugged in?

So if I connect my hdmi via dvi then maybe that will allow the toslink settings to show up correctly. I am surprised apple hasn't fixed this issue since from the reading I've done seems to affect only certain mac minis so its not an intentional feature.

Ill try hooking the mini up via dvi and seeing if that allows me to set my surround settings properly.

[macmanmacman]

Thats what i would do.

But remember one key thing make sure you set your mac mini's display settings down to the lowest setting for your tv because if you don't and you connect the dvi you will end up with a out of range error this isn't your fault it's just the hdmi and dvi display in two differrent styles of screen resolution