Hi folks, I have a question for you:

I have a Macbook Pro (early 2008 model, I believe), which I'm extremely pleased with.
I've recently made a significant upgrade in my speaker system, as well as started archiving my blu-rays to MKV's (Plex is a great front-end, I've found); however, there is one caveat so far:
I have, what I would consider, a nice speaker system now -- however, and as I'm sure you all know, the Macbooks/minis do not have HDMI or 5.1 analog outputs for the dolby true hd & dts lossless formats.
I know I can permanently down convert the audio from my blu-ray rips, but I'd really love to keep/use that extra quality.

My receiver, an Onkyo TX-DS797, supports 5.1ch analog inputs. I'd love to use these guys to get the uncompressed audio into my receiver & then out to my speakers.
So, the question: is there an add-on accessory/unit/whatever that will allow me 5.1ch analog outputs on a Mac?
Firewire?
USB?
Anything?

The only thing I could find was:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewave
yet somehow I'm guessing that's lacking in the quality department, as well as the frequency-range departments? Or are 5.1ch analog outputs simply 5.1ch analog outputs?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as I'd really love to keep the quality of that audio -- otherwise I'll be forced to down convert the audio in order to play the movies' audio back at all. :(

Thanks so much!

John

I looked at the Firewave, too, as I wanted to do the same thing. Unfortunately, it is limited to DD5.1 and PLII-- no DTS or PCM even.

Sadly, there's just no way to do what you want right now. The best you can do at this time is transcode your audio to DTS 1509kbps and send it out over toslink.

What would you consider a better option:
transcode to dts @ 1509 (like you mentioned),
or just go to regular ac3 for now, and try and backup/archive just the true-hd, master audio, etc files to somewhere else, and remux down the line when a real solution presents itself?
Would you think a solution is even *going* to present itself?
Humorously enough, I do have a ps3...but not a receiver with HDMI inputs...so I'm still stuck either way. And of course there isn't 5.1ch analog outputs on the PS3. :\

Thoughts?

Archiving the high res audio sounds like a great idea, and should take a reasonable amount of storage space. Re-muxing doesn't take all that long compared with transcoding...I think I'd vote for that.

That's what I do-- use the base DD or DTS tracks for now and archive the hires tracks for the future. I also haven't personally bothered transcoding DD to DTS, as I think it would take up so much time with so little to gain.