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Anyone try to build a Hackintosh HTPC? - Page 2

post #31 of 48
5/11/12 at 8:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by audit13 View Post

I had no idea that a Mac can bitstream.

My friend has a new 13" i5 Macbook Pro and he cannot get DTS-HD. I'll have to see what he's using for playback.

He probably has older model without hdmi,only 2011 and up have hdmi.But one thing that apple dont tell you and it took me 5 years to find out about it,is that 3.5 audio out(or in dont remember) has a hidden optical output inside it!
Apple has their proprietary 3.5 cord with optical running in the middle,yes sound strange but its true,so you can stream from any intel mac through optical out.
But audiophilies still use external usb dac,there is also a six hundred dollar audio player for mac,i can find.out the name if anuone.wants it that sound relly supperb and has advanced bittstreaming options,i tried a "leagaly" aquired version and it really profesional player.
There is also cheaper ones $20-$50 that produce better sound.
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post #32 of 48
5/11/12 at 8:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LVIV73 View Post

He probably has older model without hdmi,only 2011 and up have hdmi.But one thing that apple dont tell you and it took me 5 years to find out about it,is that 3.5 audio out(or in dont remember) has a hidden optical output inside it!
Apple has their proprietary 3.5 cord with optical running in the middle,yes sound strange but its true,so you can stream from any intel mac through optical out.
But audiophilies still use external usb dac,there is also a six hundred dollar audio player for mac,i can find.out the name if anuone.wants it that sound relly supperb and has advanced bittstreaming options,i tried a "leagaly" aquired version and it really profesional player.
There is also cheaper ones $20-$50 that produce better sound.

Optical is, by definition, limited and outdated. You can't get HD audio over optical. I hope you're not suggesting that "gee it has optical audio output" is a selling point.
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post #33 of 48
5/11/12 at 9:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zon2020 View Post

Optical is, by definition, limited and outdated. You can't get HD audio over optical. I hope you're not suggesting that "gee it has optical audio output" is a selling point.

Ya need to stop acting like im defending macs because im not.Their new osx is garbage they lack usb 3.0 and more.
But I have more pleast expirience on osx than windows,and you can do 99 percent of things on osx that you can on windows and do thrm better in most cases.

If we are talking about audio thaen laser optical does everything(i could be wrong),only thing that optical dont do is 7.1 and some dts used in blu ray's and videos.
But regardless,new macs with hdmi do all that out the box,and mac mini's are perfect htpc's,yes they could use 512mb of vram instead of 256mb,and the price should be 100-200 dollars cheaper but besides those 2 shortcomings they are solid htpc machines.
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post #34 of 48
5/11/12 at 9:20am
Quote:


If we are talking about audio thaen laser optical does everything(i could be wrong),

There is no laser involved and multichannel audio is compressed.
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post #35 of 48
5/11/12 at 9:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LVIV73 View Post

If we are talking about audio thaen laser optical does everything(i could be wrong),only thing that optical dont do is 7.1 and some dts used in blu ray's and videos.

Optical cannot handle either DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD. It's obsolete.
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post #36 of 48
5/11/12 at 9:32am
You know there's a whole seperate forum here for HTPC-Mac Chat that exists for the very reason of avoiding the pissing contest that this thread is becoming. I suggest if you are so gung ho about using a Mac as an HTPC, that you take this over there, because no one here agrees with you.

HTPC-Mac Chat Forum

You might want to read the "NOTICE!! Everyone please read this before posting!" sticky above.

NOTICE!! Everyone please read this before posting!
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post #37 of 48
5/11/12 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LVIV73 View Post

Im no fanboy,but i prefer osx-it just feels better.

Presuming XBMC for the Mac is more or less the same as a PC, what difference does it make what the underlying OS is...to make it "feel better"? You're never using what lies under the hood with a good front end with the exception of the occasional maintenance.
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post #38 of 48
5/11/12 at 10:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cdru View Post

Presuming XBMC for the Mac is more or less the same as a PC, what difference does it make what the underlying OS is...to make it "feel better"? You're never using what lies under the hood with a good front end with the exception of the occasional maintenance.

Exactly. If using XBMC, though, I'd be more inclined to just use Linux. It's a lot less expensive and someone using XBMC would probably have their Blu-ray ripped and stripped of DRM, anyway.

I prefer WMC+MediaBrowser, though. It requires a lot less effort to set-up and maintain on my part.
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post #39 of 48
5/11/12 at 1:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SAM64 View Post

There is no laser involved and multichannel audio is compressed.

From what I have read, not all multichannel audio is compressed. A movie that comes into my mind is the Blu-ray of Underworld and Underworld Evolution which both have uncompressed 5.1 channel pcm audio.
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post #40 of 48
5/11/12 at 1:25pm
Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA are also uncompressed multi channel audio formats.
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post #41 of 48
5/11/12 at 2:29pm
Multichannel PCM is uncompressed and lossless, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are both compressed formats, but lossless. Using advanced algorithms that were not available at the time PCM was invented, one can store the entire audio sequence in a smalled quantity of storage, that`s what TrueHD and DTS-HD do. Kinda like what WinRAR does to your files when you create an archive and it ends up smaller than the source files, but with no loss of data.
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post #42 of 48
5/11/12 at 2:37pm
You are right, of course, they are lossless... my bad. Point is you get the same result (ie. you don't get "compressed sounding" audio).
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post #43 of 48
5/11/12 at 6:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LVIV73 View Post

Ya need to stop acting like im defending macs because im not.Their new osx is garbage they lack usb 3.0 and more.
But I have more pleast expirience on osx than windows,and you can do 99 percent of things on osx that you can on windows and do thrm better in most cases.

If we are talking about audio thaen laser optical does everything(i could be wrong),only thing that optical dont do is 7.1 and some dts used in blu ray's and videos.
But regardless,new macs with hdmi do all that out the box,and mac mini's are perfect htpc's,yes they could use 512mb of vram instead of 256mb,and the price should be 100-200 dollars cheaper but besides those 2 shortcomings they are solid htpc machines.

Like typing coherently?
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post #44 of 48
5/11/12 at 6:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LVIV73 View Post

Man jetaudio came along way since those days,try it its free-you want be dissapointed,you can thank me later.
Plus for audio there is nothing better out there its the only player that support 32-64 bit sound,put it this way-this is the player that audiophilies use on windows and there is nothing better even on osx.

I never said Jet Audio wasn't better than before. I record talk shows broadcast by stream or by podcast with Replay A/V. When I want to playback one of those files, WMP works just fine.

Lately I have been just sending to my Android phone.

I don't discount its SQ, I just don't playback music like normal people do. I DJ...
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post #45 of 48
5/12/12 at 3:55am
I spent several days trying out notebooks Hackintosh. In the end, they were either immediate fails or almost useable except for annoying driver issues. In the end, I just decided to use Oracle VirtualBox for my occasional needs.
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post #46 of 48
5/12/12 at 7:04am
Quote:


From what I have read, not all multichannel audio is compressed.

...but when transmitted over SPDIF, it is compressed....which is what I was referring to.
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post #47 of 48
5/12/12 at 11:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LVIV73 View Post

Linux,i had to type in terminal like 4 commands just to be able to copy files from one hd to another.I will take windows or osx over linux anyday.
If i wanted something different i would chose Amiga os4 or MorphOS.

Drag and drop works in Linux.

Jerry
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post #48 of 48
5/12/12 at 1:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SAM64 View Post

...but when transmitted over SPDIF, it is compressed....which is what I was referring to.

Yes, you are correct. Only uncompressed stereo is possible over optical.
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