5.1 Surround Sound Macbook Pro via Toslink to AV Receiver not working

[sam00walters]

I cannot seem to get anything other than stereo out of my macbook pro, running snow leopard, via toslink to my AV receiver using VLC to play MKV's ect.
I have opened Audio MIDI Setup, selected 'Built-In Output', 'Digital Out', '48000.0Hz', 'Encoded Digital Audio' and then 'Configure Speakers'. On the 'multichannel tab', I then clicked 'stereo' and am now unable to select '5.1 Surround' (desired option) or any other surround option (all options are greyed out). It's as if only my two fronts can be detected, but not the others in my 5.1
I have seen similar problems posted elsewhere, but none with 'not being able to switch from stereo to surround within Audio MIDI Setup'.

If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.

All the best,
Sam

 

[raincntry]

Toslink

I don't have the answer but I'm also looking. As near as I can tell, the optical out only works with a digital signal. I've only seen reference to people using the toslink with the DVD player program but not with anything else. I would be interested to know if a Mac can use it as the default audio out.