I've been encoding movies for iTunes mostly to play back on my two AppleTV units and up until now I've only been testing the output of Handbrake 0.93 on my two Macs and the Dolby 5.1 AC3 soundtracks play back in stereo on them just fine. I have been using my Windows machine to encode movies, though and I've been having some trouble with MetaX producing unplayable (either audio or video) files and so I've been testing them first off the Windows PC using its version of iTunes and I immediately noticed I get no sound what-so-ever from the Dolby 5.1 tracks in iTunes, but I do get them on my Macs. I now realize that my earlier installs of Perian are the reason I'm getting sound on my Macs and even though I have the latest and greatest iTunes 7.6 on all my machines, including Windows, Quicktime apparently still can't read or handle 5.1 EXCEPT on AppleTV (without help from something like Perian).
The problem is Perian is NOT available for Windows. So my question is whether there is any solution for getting 5.1 output (even if only into stereo; i.e. so I get SOME kind of indication that the soundtrack encoded is working or not after tagging with MetaX without having to copy back and forth to a Mac to be sure) from the Windows version of iTunes? In other words, is there something similar to Perian for Windows, even if less functional?
And anyone that has a newer Mac with optical output, does Perian product true 5.1 AC3 output on your Mac directly connected to a modern receiver? I'm just curious about that. My MBP has optical out, but I haven't attempted to connect it downstairs yet to find out and my PowerMac only has analog output.
The problem is Perian is NOT available for Windows. So my question is whether there is any solution for getting 5.1 output (even if only into stereo; i.e. so I get SOME kind of indication that the soundtrack encoded is working or not after tagging with MetaX without having to copy back and forth to a Mac to be sure) from the Windows version of iTunes? In other words, is there something similar to Perian for Windows, even if less functional?
And anyone that has a newer Mac with optical output, does Perian product true 5.1 AC3 output on your Mac directly connected to a modern receiver? I'm just curious about that. My MBP has optical out, but I haven't attempted to connect it downstairs yet to find out and my PowerMac only has analog output.