Upgraded Audio a la 5.1 in July?

[MacGodHunter]

This is one area that Apple is seriously lacking. Apple bills itself as a multi-media behemoth, but does not support any level of surround sound. PC's have been supporting 5.1 dolby digital and now DTS for years. There isn't even an addon board that supports it for Apples.

Anyone care to theorize why it has taken apple so long to adopt this standard? I mean, it's not like we're talking about DDR ram here, just measley old 5.1 surround (digital out of course).


-out
Mac God Hunter

 

[Edge100]

http://www.emagic.de/english/products/hardware/emi26.html

sure, it's USB, but it has won a lot of praise. 2 inputs, 6 outputs to allow 5.1 output

 

[AlphaTech]

Re: Upgraded Audio a la 5.1 in July?

Originally posted by MacGodHunter
Apple bills itself as a multi-media behemoth, but does not support any level of surround sound.

I guess you haven't checked out the Mac soundblaster card which supports 4.1 surround sound.

 

[MacGodHunter]

that's not a legit solution

In response to (http://www.emagic.de/english/produc...ware/emi26.html) suggestion

that's a piece of junk from my standpoint and here is why.

1) it supports no standards.
-there are lots of standards in the surround sound arena (dolby, dolby digital, pro logic, dts) and you need to support them all.

2) what the heck are you supposed to do with that after you get it?
-Apple DVD player does not support surround sound. (it mixes 5.1 down to 2 channel) It does not come with DVD software. There are no applications to take advantage of it.

3) Its a freagin USB interface
-no pro could rely on the delay generated though the USB interface if they were mixing with video. Also it would lag in DVD playback, unless optimized with compression, thereby reducing the audio clarity.

4) It's a .de address, i.e. its not sold in America, home of Mac God Hunter
-nuff said

I want the NEW HOTNESS not OLD AND BUSTED.

-out
Mac God Hunter

 

[MacGodHunter]

Creative Crap

In response to the paltry plea to just buy a creative card.

CREATIVE does not support real surround sound. They ONLY support EAX, which is their lame interpretation of how to do Surround Sound in video games.

There is no support for surround in anything other than games that have been programmed with EAX. I repeat, no support. You cannot watch DVD's with surround sound with this card. You cannot edit 5.1 surround sound tracks with this card.

Do a little research before you submit a reply next time.
Poor Planing, Produces Piss Poor Production (write that down)

Once more, Mac God Hunter wants NEW HOTNESS not OLD AND BUSTED.

-out
Mac God Hunter

 

[AlphaTech]

Re: Creative Crap

Originally posted by MacGodHunter
In response to the paltry plea to just buy a creative card.

Alright Bubba... I DID NOT plea or even SAY you should buy a creative card. I DID say that it provides 4.1 support... IF you want to get it, that's your f*cking choice.

Don't say there is NOT anything like surround sound available when there is. 4.1 is ONLY missing one center speaker. IF you REALLY NEED 5.1 sound, then wait for it or go get bent.

Oh, and don't go all pissy and whiney because you can't edit 5.1 sound on the native sound on a Mac. How many peecee's come with 5.1 sound ON the motherboard???

You are rapidly being targetted... Wise up before you get slam danced out of here... newbies

 

[MacGodHunter]

Creative Crap Part 2: "fortnight cancelled"

Creative does not support surround sound in anything but games that support EAX, so what good is it? I can think of only one game on the mac that supports EAX, but computer games are just a complex form of self gratification anyways.

I want DVD surround support. I want Dolby Digital, DTS, or even PRO Logic. Support for just one standard would please me. I want surround sound audio in native applications. I want to edit 5.1. In short, I want NEW HOTNESS, not OLD AND BUSTED.

-out
MAC GOD HUNTER

 

[eyelikeart]

Re: Re: Creative Crap

Originally posted by AlphaTech

You are rapidly being targetted... Wise up before you get slam danced out of here... newbies

if there's one thing u learn quickly here at macrumors...

Alpha loves a challenge...

and he loves slamming newbies who present themselves on a platter for his pickings...

so I'm just going to sit back and watch u get your @ss handed to u....he he he

 

[MacGodHunter]

hmm....

get my a** handled ehh?? God your transparent.

-out
Mac God Hunter

 

[StevesNephew]

ooh yeah

If there's going to be a*s handling, I want in!

 

[Tommy!]

Re: hmm....

Originally posted by MacGodHunter
get my a** handled ehh?? God your transparent.

-out
Mac God Hunter

I have no tolerance for those who criticize others while using poor grammar. Something up with which I will not put.

 

[D0ct0rteeth]

Actually this subject comes up all the time...

Here I go again...

The Soundblaster Live Card is ****e.... it doesnt work in osx and literaly one guy named brian who works at creative does all their mac support in his free time... Check out www.insidemacgames.com for more info if your interested. They beat this topic to death.

The better solution is the Audiophile 2496 and they have osx support... they are a little expensive; but you can get them on ebay for about $150 bones.

Yamaha has the CAVIT RP-U200; a cool external box that shows some promise.. but it cant contend with the Audiophile 2496... its more expensive and its usb. Kinda like the emagic box listed above.

Hope this helps.

C-

 

[Hemingray]

Is this a random gripe or is this an actual hardware rumor, eg. you heard from some reliable source that 5.1 would be in the upcoming models released in July?

P.S. I'd love to see 5.1 in a PowerMac, but my life won't be that worse off without it. DDR, on the other hand...

 

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by Hemingray
Is this a random gripe or is this an actual hardware rumor

it was a question I guess....then Alpha did his thing...

and I got into it for fun...and he got on me...

no worries...as Alpha would say....

newbies

 

[tjwett]

Re: that's not a legit solution

Originally posted by MacGodHunter
In response to (http://www.emagic.de/english/produc...ware/emi26.html) suggestion

that's a piece of junk from my standpoint and here is why.

1) it supports no standards.
-there are lots of standards in the surround sound arena (dolby, dolby digital, pro logic, dts) and you need to support them all.

2) what the heck are you supposed to do with that after you get it?
-Apple DVD player does not support surround sound. (it mixes 5.1 down to 2 channel) It does not come with DVD software. There are no applications to take advantage of it.

3) Its a freagin USB interface
-no pro could rely on the delay generated though the USB interface if they were mixing with video. Also it would lag in DVD playback, unless optimized with compression, thereby reducing the audio clarity.

4) It's a .de address, i.e. its not sold in America, home of Mac God Hunter
-nuff said

I want the NEW HOTNESS not OLD AND BUSTED.

-out
Mac God Hunter

Obviously you are confused. The emi 2|6 is an outstanding unit. It is not designed for making you a home entertainment center. It is an audio interface designed for pro recording, and ideally with Logic Audio. I am a professional musician and sound designer for film and television of many years and I use the emi 2|6 with Logic, Reason and a slew of other applications and it performs like a champ. Infact it's the core of my live stage setup. In regards to USB audio, the emi 2|6 achieves latency as low as my Firewire interface in Logic Audio. And yes it is sold in the US. Got mine at Guitar Center. Again, this is for music production, and I have used it to mix to 5.1 on several occasions.

 

[peterjhill]

Re: Re: Creative Crap

Originally posted by AlphaTech
Don't say there is NOT anything like surround sound available when there is. 4.1 is ONLY missing one center speaker. IF you REALLY NEED 5.1 sound, then wait for it or go get bent.

Anyone who owns a DD or DTS receiver will tell you that the most important channel is the center. 90% of the sound comes from that speaker, so for this system not to include it is pretty sad and makes it worthless IMHO.

I too am looking for a DD/DTS solution for the Mac. I would have one in a second in my office, and at home I could hook it up to my receiver. I already play games seated in the king seat of my living room with my Ti800. I would even settle for a USB solution, since I am not too worried about a few msec of delay.

If Apple would include 5.1 in new systems, game makers would no doubt start including it in their new games. Halo on the XBox rocks with DD!

So I will wait for it. I am looking casually into the exigy (ms?) that creative makes. There are no current mac drivers, but I have heard rumors of an intrepid mac programmer hacking something together for it.

 

[3rdpath]

i actually think you're both a little right. having done mixes in 4.1. 5.1 and 7.1, i will say the more speakers you have, the greater control you have over the overall mix BUT the differences between 4.1 and 5.1 are pretty marginal. anything placed in the center channel can be panned to that exact position in a 4.1 setup. there are also subtle differences in the way a 4.1 and 5.1 system should be placed in relation to the visuals which can enhance the experience.

i do think apple will address this issue and my bet is it will be 5.1...

we'll see.(and hear )

 

[Rower_CPU]

Here's my take on 5.1 audio on a desktop system: uneccessary

4.1 audio is sufficient for several reasons:
proximity of the front satellites
proximity of the listener

I consider myself an audiophile, and have setup my own 5.1 home theater system and I have a 4.1 system on my PC. DVD and game audio on the PC was perfectly acceptable.

If you are going to be using your Mac as a home theater system in a typical large room environment, where speaker are spaced further apart, then 5.1 is much preferable.

 

[3rdpath]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Here's my take on 5.1 audio on a desktop system: uneccessary

4.1 audio is sufficient for several reasons:
proximity of the front satellites
proximity of the listener

I consider myself an audiophile, and have setup my own 5.1 home theater system and I have a 4.1 system on my PC. DVD and game audio on the PC was perfectly acceptable.

If you are going to be using your Mac as a home theater system in a typical large room environment, where speaker are spaced further apart, then 5.1 is much preferable.

i agree 100%. i only think apple will go with 5.1 is because most dvd authoring is 5.1. and apple seems to be leaning towards being an integral part of the home entertainment system.

 

[Tyler Durden]

Ok.
All this talk about 4.1...
There is no such thing as 4.1
The term 4.1 alone would indicate 4 "Discrete" channels of audio and a discrete low frequency channel.
4.1 is merely dolby surround, dolby prologic for the consumer folk.
It is basically stereo with a phantom center, and a LF cutoff filter sending to the sub, and non discrete encoded mono surround.
Nothing about this is discrete.
5.1 is the heart of surround sound, and the standard from re-recording mixdowns on movies, to the dvd's we all know and love. A quasi-plausible 5.1 edit, monitor, and mixdown setup does exist with Motu's 828. This is a firewire breakout box with eight channels of balanced/unbalanced analog inputs and outputs. You can mix and monitor 6 discrete channels, save your bus outputs from audiodesk and then drop the files into the A.Pack included with DVD studio pro. Burn your dvd and away you go. This is the easiest and cheapest way to do it.
However, I'll tell you what we really need. We need Protools running on OSX with native Audiocore support. We need a digi 002 device that is firewire based and similar to the 828 except that you can run Protools with it. Nobody cares about ASIO drivers. Nobody in the pro sound editing industry uses Audiodesk, or Performer, or even Logic. Logic is for music, and its audio and midi capabilities for this are very powerful. But it is not sound editing software nor is it professional mixing software. Go to Skywalker, Sound One in NYC, Todd AO, or Deluxe Toronto and ask what they use. Pros use Protools and sure the new Mbox is great for its portability. Used in conjunction with an iBook or Ti, you can get great location recordings, sound fx, etc with relative ease. But desktop Prosumer 5.1 capabilities require more. With great solutions such as Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, iDVD, the only missing piece of the puzzle is OSX Protools with a firewire 002. With these elements, you can really make a movie on your desktop computer. You can do it in your own house.
It would be nice if there was Dolby Digital/DTS decoders built into the DVD Player software in OSX, as well as a spdif/coaxial output so you could plug into your home theater receiver and enjoy your desktop dvd's in a 5.1 listening environment.
Not to mention that being able to take the freshly burned dvd from the film you just made on your mac and QC it in a 5.1 discrete setup without removing it from the drive would be a huge bonus.
These are such gaping wide holes that it would be senseless for Digidesign and Apple not to come through and make it happen.
I would only hope sooner than later.
Long winded, but to the point.

TD

p.s. a DTS encoder ala A.Pack would be splendid. Dolby Digital sounds like schwarf in comparison.

 

[Rower_CPU]

TD-

4.1 on my PC uses discrete channels in gaming, and in Creative Labs demo apps.

It's true that for movies, it will default to Dolby Pro Logic, but don't overgeneralize.

"Self improvement is masturbation."

 

[Tyler Durden]

rower
Love the quote.
You don't understand the concept of discrete audio. This so called 4.1 is not discrete.
I'll explain to you how this works.

If this so called 4.1 was discrete, it would contain 5 separate channels of audio. But the output of this creative labs card is a stereo 1/8" mini jack. Emphasis on the word stereo.
How can you have 5 discrete (meaning separate/unique) channels carrying signal over a 2 channel analog connection? The answer is: you cannot.
You would either need 5 separate analog line outputs from the card, or a digital spdif/coax line.
"When a Dolby Surround soundtrack is produced, four channels of audio information—left, center, right, and surround—are MATRIX-encoded onto two audio tracks. These two tracks are then carried on stereo program sources such as videotapes and TV broadcasts into the home, where they can be decoded to recreate the original four channels and the surround sound experience."

"Creative Multi Speaker-Surround™ technology places any mono or stereo sound source in a 360 degree audio space"

Creative labs calls it 4.1 only because there are four point one speakers. EAX is borderline Dolby Surround, or Pro-Logic.
"It's true that for movies, it will default to Dolby Pro Logic"
Nothing defaults. It is what it is.

It may sound great for video games. That's fine with me. I just think it's important to know the difference and to understand why the need for 5.1 creation on the desktop mac is so important.
Go to www.dolby.com, and www.creativelabs.com
Do some reading.

 

[peterjhill]

I typically use my laptop sitting in my living room in the same place that I have optimized my DD/DTS home theater for the best sound. So, for someone like me, 4.1 is silly. I don't want a new decoder, I have a perfectly beautiful one already with plenty of digital ins. I want something that I can use to connect my mac to the system.

Harman Kardon makes a usb/digital coax box that can send raw mp3s to my receiver, or alternatively convert it to PCM. This is nice, since my receiver has a very nice hardware mp3 decoder.

I believe that the market exists for mac 5.1 sound systems. I am looking for something with the digital out, not something with two headphone jacks and one for a subwoofer, which is what the 4.1 systems I have seen use.

At least dolby pro logic should work out from the apple dvd player. Since the surround info is matrixed into the stereo sound, it should be able to be pulled out. I havent had the need to test this though, as i would generally use my real dvd player for this purpose.

 

[3rdpath]

Originally posted by Tyler Durden
Nobody in the pro sound editing industry uses Audiodesk, or Performer, or even Logic.

Really? nobody huh?

protools is overpriced and overhyped. it is widely used but i think that says more about herd mentality than it's capabilities. you might as well also add that harrison mpc consoles are the standard and nothing less will do for the home production enthusiast.

you are correct that most if not all of the big houses( todd ao etc) use protools but i think that has more to do with digi's pioneering the market and the post houses' fear of system changeover.

more and more indie's are using performer( etc) instead of protools in their post production process and that will only increase over time. there is much more trickle-up than trickle-down in this business. we've already seen this in home recording.

i don't think protools will disappear but it will be confined to a select few monolith post houses and for a select portion of the audio process such as
rerecording. same goes for avid.

my 24 bits.

 

[cjw]

Re: Re: hmm....

Originally posted by Tommy!


I have no tolerance for those who criticize others while using poor grammar. Something up with which I will not put.

"Something up with which I will not put."
You're criticizing someone for using bad grammar while criticizing somone else, but you yourself use a sentence that doesn't make sense. It should read "Something with which I will not put up."