Has anyone figured out how to get Dolby Digital and DTS using Frontrow? I tried the enable code that you use terminal and all I get is static for sound now. The Frontrow thread that has been stickied is dead so thought I would have the best luck here. Thanks for any help!

Forgot to mention that I get DD and DTS from DVDs in FR but not from ripped movies. VLC will play all of them perfectly but I need to be able to use the mac remote (wife). Tried Boxee and for some reason will not recognize my external hard drive.

Are you in 10.5 or 10.6, because it makes a difference.

Which Terminal hack did you try? If you didn't use this one, then you didn't use the correct one:

http://www.cod3r.com/2008/02/the-correct-way-to-enable-ac3-passthrough-with-quicktime/

What's a "ripped movie" if not a VIDEO_TS--are you referring to .mkv? If not, what containers/codecs aren't you able to get AC3/DTS passthrough with?

Using MakeMKV about 90% or Mac the ripper. Most movies are MKV with a couple of .vob.

My version of OSX 10.5.8 I also have snow leopard but removed it from my mac mini after it did not improve my situation at all.

That is the web page that I got the instructions from. Went from 2 channel stereo to static. Its hooked up to my receiver which is a Yamaha rxv-2600. Which i believe is compatible. Thanks for the help BTW.

OK, that's a little more clear. I have no problem with AC3/DTS from VIDEO_TS, either, and that's the hack I use with FR and my two HK AVRs, I'm on 10.5.8 as well, and AC3/DTS passthrough works for me with 720p and 1080p H264 .mkv content, and also .avi. Not .mp4/.m4v, however. (Note that DTS no longer works with Perian 1.1.4)

Did you already do the standard troubleshooting, your system (and app) volume at 100%, MIDI set to 48 and 2ch-16bit, restart (close and then reopen) FR, etc?

This situation is worse, not better, in 10.6, so for now I think you're better off trying to work this out in 10.5.8--download a BR rip with AC3 just as a test--maybe there's something about the way you're ripping that's a problem...

I can report in 10.6 m4v Handbrake files rarely (but sometimes do) pass through - AC3 - with Perian or without; using MIDI 48 2ch 16bit or otherwise; iTunes/QT especially...

Apple TV passes through perfectly every time with these same files; amazing...

ken

I know someone that works at Apple unfortunately he is not in the audio part of the OS team. If he was, I would ask him WTF is Apple doing to fix this issue. This is 2009!! These are minimum requirements. PCs are already bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD, etc. and MacOS X cannot get the freaking 10+ year old codec working.

Yeah! Another astonishing fact; I have an app on my iphone that will show me where I can find a draft pint of Guinness but........the mac mini does not pass audio via HDMI! My friends $29 DVD player passes sound via HDMI!

You may want to play with DVDPlayer settings.
Some of those settings (like sound output) are actually used by Front Row, although there is no interface in FR to set them.
Front Row and DVDPlayer should ultimately give the same sound and picture quality (except when buggy, like in 10.6.1... )

I don't think the DVD Player and Front Row shares everything. For example, while DVD player app has hardware acceleration for playback, Quicktime and therefore Front Row does not. In fact, the APIs that DVD player uses are not public. That is why a 1080p H.264 file uses up more CPU to playback in Quicktime than in a windows box that has hardware acceleration.

My dvds play back with DD and DTS in frontrow currently so the settings should be ok anyway. Thanks again everyone for the help!

I don't think the DVD Player and Front Row shares everything. For example, while DVD player app has hardware acceleration for playback, Quicktime and therefore Front Row does not. In fact, the APIs that DVD player uses are not public. That is why a 1080p H.264 file uses up more CPU to playback in Quicktime than in a windows box that has hardware acceleration.

Not quite. Front Row is using the DVD Player frameworks to play DVD content. All other content is handled by QuickTime. Also QuickTime X has hardware acceleration.