Optical Out on imac

[ThomtheEditor]

Hi, i want to hook my imac up to my hdtv; I'm getting the mini to vga adaptor with 3.5mm audio line to run to my tv speakers for my wife. I however prefer sound out of my surround system via the mini to optical converter. What i'm wondering is there any kind of splitter available that preserves the optical 5.1 data to send one stream down to surround system and the other stereo thru the tv?

I'd like to avoid getting an external sound card to keep it as clutter free as possible.

Thanks!

 

[avihappy]

Hi, i want to hook my imac up to my hdtv; I'm getting the mini to vga adaptor with 3.5mm audio line to run to my tv speakers for my wife. I however prefer sound out of my surround system via the mini to optical converter. What i'm wondering is there any kind of splitter available that preserves the optical 5.1 data to send one stream down to surround system and the other stereo thru the tv?

I'd like to avoid getting an external sound card to keep it as clutter free as possible.

Thanks!

No, the audio in/out will either operate in optical or analogue, but not both. If you want to do this, the easiest setup is to use an external sound card. When you want to use analogue, you switch to the sound card (hooked up with the 3.5mm cable). If you want to use 5.1 digital, just use the internal sound card (hooked into optical). You can use Rogue Amoeba's free SoundSource to pick the output.

Another way is to see if your A/V receiver can convert and send the audio it gets via optical to the TV.

I am curious, why do you need the analogue for your wife and the 5.1 digital for yourself? Why can't both of you simply use the 5.1?

 

[nullx86]

iMac > Optical Out > Amp > both Optical and 3.5mm out available via amp...

not really that hard, just a little of tweaking at most.

 

[ThomtheEditor]

I am curious, why do you need the analogue for your wife and the 5.1 digital for yourself? Why can't both of you simply use the 5.1?

She doesn't like having to mess with the receiver; just to turn on the tv, pick the input and have it work. Was hoping i could do it that way; or is there an optical splitter i could use and convert one of the outputs back to stereo via optical to female mini?

 

[ThomtheEditor]

with a bit of research i've found that there are optical splitters that i can run one optical back to a receiver and the other to an optical to mini cable and couple that into my vga + audio cable; so long as there's not to much signal loss down the pipeline that should work pretty perfectly!