Outputting picture with sound on unibody macbook (aluminum late 2008)?

heliocentric said:

Am i correct when i say that it wont output sound with the picture through display port (using a hdmi adapter) like on a later macbook model?

if so would either of these do the job?

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10428&cs_id=1042802&p_id=5969&seq=1&format=2

or

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10428&cs_id=1042802&p_id=6331&seq=1&format=2

which is better? could anyone explain the differences?

Click to expand...

The first one uses USB for the sound. The second appears to use optical digital for the sound, but USB for the power.

I'd get the strictly USB cable. I don't see the benefit of using optical digital instead of USB. Both will have digital audio, so there should be no difference in the sound quality.

No need to bump.

As mentioned in post #2 it's digital audio. The two will sound identical.

heliocentric said:

Then why would anyone by the more costly one?

do they both output dolby digital? in the usb one it says it wont output 5.1...

thanks

Click to expand...

If that's what the USB one says then no, sounds like the USB chip is only basic audio.

The Toslink cable will output any bitstream format that the onboard sound supports, so Dolby Digital and DTS will be fine.

heliocentric said:

so maybe the more exspensive toslink one would be better quality?

how would the usb one output the sound if it cant bitstream it?

Click to expand...

There is no better quality. 1s and 0s are still 1s and 0s however you send them down a cable. Even a wire coathanger would work within reason. The part that will determine sound quality will be the decoder at the other end, be it a TV or Home Cinema Amp etc.

In the case of the USB its down to supported sound formats. In the USB cable there will be a sound chip which takes over from the sound chip in the Mac. At a guess it's probably intended for use in a headsets therefore will only know about stereo (or 2.0 sound). There's no need for 5.1 sound on a headset with one or two speakers, so why add the ability when you'll have to pay licensing fees to Dolby and DTS?

Yes, get the Toslink.

I read this thread but i'm not sure I understand. I thought I Would explain my situation.

I have the 2010 2.4ghz i5 MacBook Pro.

Normally when I have a .mkv file, I can put it on a USB and connect to my Samsung TV and watch it off that, with the sound feeding via Optical to my Onkyo Receiver connected to my surround sound speakers.

I also can convert the mkv using mkvtools to a .m4v or .mp4 and then watch off my my PS3, which connects to my receiver via HDMI. (Not sure which of the two would be better for sound - assuming the .mkv file I had to begin with had a nice sound source).

Now, I have a 720p blu-ray rip dts .mkv movie I want to watch which is 8.57gb. Since the file is over 4gb, I'd have to format my USB drive for a mac but then I think neither the PS3 nor my Samsung could then read it. Plus, I think either in the conversion (for my PS3) or the use of optical (for my TV) I would lose the DTS anyways.

I think my only choice is to get the cable that will let me connect my MBP to the receiver via HDMI. Am I correct in this assumption? If so, what should I get? Or is there a way to use my USB ways with this large dts (oh and it has subtitles - not sure if that matters) file.