Petition for Multi-Channel Sound Support

[DeusOmnis]

There is a petition for Macintosh hardware support for multi-channel sound:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ssapple/petition.html

However, there *is* the M-Audio Revolution 7.1/5.1 sound cards. Unfortunately Apple also lacks the software support for these cards to be very useful. VLC can play movies in multi-channel sound if you have one of these cards, but it's my understanding that Apple does not have an API for multi-channel sound so most software, games in particular, cannot take advantage of these soundcards without large amounts of work. Also, DVD Player, Quicktime, and iTunes do not support multi-channel sound.

I was considering creating a new petition that would ask for Apple software support (for both the OS and Apple applications) for multi-channel sound. I am sincerly hoping that Tiger will include this support, especially with Apple's steps to include optical out for sound and selling 5.1 speaker systems on the apple store. But in case they dont, I definitely would like to make a petition.

So here I wanted to make sure two things.
1) That my facts are straight
2) That people actually cared enough to sign it

 

[Counterfit]

iTunes and DVD Player DO support multi-channel sound. However, iTunes could use a way that works well when you're not connected to an external decoder. The way you can do it with iTunes is to save the sound as AIFF or Apple Lossless, so that when you play it back through stereo speakers and no decoding, you hear static, but when put through external equipment with the appropriate decoding capability, it will come out as multi-channel surround sound. I don't know how DVD Player does it though.

And as for the hardware, it won't happen in a while, thanks to Apple Records. They won a lawsuit (or it was settled or something) which basically keeps Apple Computers from making hardware explicitly for sound. I believe that only the Apple IIgs had dedicated sound hardware.

 

[Counterfit]

Oh, and no one who makes the necessary decisions EVER looks at online petitions. Ever.

 

[DeusOmnis]

is that the only response I'm going to get? no one else cares?