Before I track down a mini to standard toslink cable I was wondering if memory was correct on one thing. I want to play my Japanese Kill Bill Vol. One (ripped with MacTheRipper for region 0) out of the computer because my three burn attempts at dual layer have had audio problems. With a toslink connection to a DTS enabled receiver will I get DTS? It's a 1.67 GHZ G4 Powerbook with mini optical out and I'll be using VLC to play it.

Yes, both the DVD player and VLC will pass through a digital audio stream. I believe that VLC will no longer decode a DTS stream to stereo, so you won't be able to play it without toslink cable but that's another issue altogether.

However, this comment:

I want to play my Japanese Kill Bill Vol. One (ripped with MacTheRipper for region 0) out of the computer because my three burn attempts at dual layer have had audio problems.

leads me to suspect that if you haven't been able to burn your rip successfully, you may still have a problem. You may have to re-rip the disc, could be the MTR version you used, the settings, the optical drives, etc. Won't know for sure until you test it.

Andrew's right--your PB has the optical minijack, and I just checked for you--the current version of VLC has no trouble passing through the DTS track of the Japanese Kill Bill Vol. 1 disc, ripped with MTR.

Which brings up the most annoying--for me--thing about the Apple DVD player application: how it loses my preference for using Digital Output. If I have the optical mini-jack plugged into my MacBook, I can choose Digital Output from the preferences pane, but if I subsequently launch the DVD player when the mini-jack is unplugged, the application will forget I prefer to use Digital Output, forcing me to return to the preference pane after plugging in. And, of course, you can't change this preference while a DVD is playing. Would it really be so hard to remember that if a mini-jack is plugged in, I'd like to use Digital Output?

Would it really be so hard to remember that if a mini-jack is plugged in, I'd like to use Digital Output?

If that annoys you, and if you do a lot of plugging and unplugging digital audio, perhaps use VLC for dvd playback? It has a checkbox in Audio Preferences to use optical when available--and that survives a "disconnect/play system sound/reconnect a Macbook/play digital audio to your HT" scenario like you've described.

However, this comment:
leads me to suspect that if you haven't been able to burn your rip successfully, you may still have a problem. You may have to re-rip the disc, could be the MTR version you used, the settings, the optical drives, etc. Won't know for sure until you test it.

Didn't get any bad sector warnings and checking the scenes where the audio drops out for 1/2 second every 10 seconds or so on the computer is fine, although it's not the DTS track. In the new VLC I can't seem to select DTS from the set-up menu. It's so frustrating. I'm only bothering because it's one of those infamous universal gold discs that magically seem to erase themselves after a few years like my Psycho and Vertigo did. Hopefully they'll release a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD director's cut since volume one is pretty different before the ratings board got ahold of it.

Before I track down a mini to standard toslink cable I was wondering if memory was correct on one thing. I want to play my Japanese Kill Bill Vol. One (ripped with MacTheRipper for region 0) out of the computer because my three burn attempts at dual layer have had audio problems. With a toslink connection to a DTS enabled receiver will I get DTS? It's a 1.67 GHZ G4 Powerbook with mini optical out and I'll be using VLC to play it.

I had NO idea my MacBook had optical out, so I checked Apple's specifications website and found out it did! They call it: "Combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack)". I had never heard of that and went searching for how this all works. I found some good info at the below link for those interested in using optical audio out of their mac books.

http://hometheater.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=47126

Just picked one up at Amazon for $18.