If set correctly, a 5.1 surround setup will enhance the range of effects, greatly contributing to the atmospheric soundtrack of a movie. If you use it while playing games, you’ll notice that it’s easier to pinpoint the enemy’s whereabouts and their actions based on the sound they make. Apr 28, 2013 - Change Sound Output from the Mac to TV via HDMI. Open System Preferences from the Apple menu and choose “Sound” Click the “Output” tab and look under the “Type” list to find the “HDMI” option and select it.
Your Mac is capable of producing sound as well as playing sound channeled from outside sources—devices plugged into the Mac’s USB- and sound input ports as well as audio streamed from the Internet. Wouldn’t it be great if you could captures some of those sounds for later listening? And you can for free with Soundflower. Here’s how it works. Step 1: Download Soundflower The first step involves finding a way to grab audio playing in one application—a Web browser, for example—and route it to an application that can capture that audio.
Cycling ’74’s free is that way. Soundflower is a system extension that lets you channel audio from one application to another. For example, you can take the audio playing from a movie in your Web browser and channel it into QuickTime Player’s audio input where you then record it. Step 2: Configure Soundflower After you’ve installed Soundflower launch the Sound system preference and you’ll see evidence of Soundflower in the Output and Input tabs. Select the Output tab and choose Soundflower (2ch). Do this and any sound that would normally come out of your Mac’s speakers is now routed through Soundflower. Any is the key word here.
If your Mac makes any sound—not just the sound you’re trying to capture but also e-mail and Twitter alerts, for example—it will route that too. Step 3: Configure your capture application You have a couple of applications on your Mac that can capture Soundflower’s audio—QuickTime Player and GarageBand. To configure QuickTime Player choose File - New Audio Recording.
In the Audio Recording window that appears click on the downward-pointing triangle to the right of the Record button. From the menu that appears choose Soundflower (2ch). When you’re ready to begin your capture, just click Record. You set up GarageBand by launching the application and in the New Project window that appears choosing Acoustic Instrument.
This creates a GarageBand project that contains a single digital audio track. Use the default tempo and time- and key-signature settings that appear in the New Project Template window and click the Create button. Open GarageBand's preferences, select the Audio/MIDI tab and from the Audio Output and Audio Input pop-up menus choose Soundflower (2ch). Close the Preferences window. If the Info pane for the track doesn’t appear, choose Track - Show Track Info.
In the Browse tab of the Info pane choose Stereo 1/2 Soundflower (2ch) from the Input source pop-up menu. When your Mac makes sound you should see it register in the track’s meters. Click Record to capture the audio. Step 4: Monitor the Mac’s sound When you choose Soundflower as your Mac’s audio output you can no longer hear it through attached speakers or headphones. In order for you to monitor what’s happening, launch the Soundflowerbed application (found in /Applications/Soundflower). Click the Soundflowerbed menu bar item that appears and choose your speakers or headphones from the menu. Now, not only will your audio application capture what your Mac plays, but you’ll be able to listen to the source audio as well.
(You may want to do this before setting up QuickTime or GarageBand to capture your audio, but that's up to you.) Again, any sound your Mac makes will be channeled through Soundflower so you’ll want to disable alert sounds or quit those applications that make them. Additionally, if you change your Mac’s volume, that change will be captured by the application that’s recording Soundflower’s sound. So, lay off the volume and mute controls.
You can avoid both of these issues by using an application such as Ambrosia Software’s $69 or Rogue Amoeba’s $32. Each of these applications allows you to capture sound from specific applications. You can adjust volume or fire off system alerts all you like and they won't affect the audio the applications capture. (If you go the Audio Hijack Pro route consider purchasing the $50 Audio Hijack Pro/Fission bundle, which includes the Fission sound editor. WireTap Studio includes an editor.).
By. 1:00 pm, January 13, 2016. Apple TV's new app could give us the interface we've dreamed of.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac So you’ve got a fourth-generation Apple TV (the one with Siri Remote and all the apps) and you’ve just downloaded that was just ported to tvOS. The last few versions of Apple TV haven’t included any storage for video files, and the same is true of the latest model: All the device’s storage is for apps and associated media files. Getting your own videos up on the big screen using VLC takes a little finesse.
Here’s how to watch any video (with a few caveats) on your Apple TV via VLC. First up, while VLC will play any video you can throw at it, AC3 audio support for.avi files doesn’t seem to be working. If you try to play a file in this format, you’ll be able to see the video, but it won’t have any sound. All the other video formats that I’ve tried, including.mkv,.mp4 and.mov files, work just fine.
There are three basic ways to get VLC on Apple TV to play your videos: Local Network, Remote Playback or Network Stream. You’ll need some sort of media server, like Plex, for the first one, a web browser for the second, and a web or FTP server for the third. Let’s take a look at each in order. Local Network Use your own media server to watch on Apple TV. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac VLC supports Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) media servers and FTP servers running on your local network. The great thing about Plex is that there’s an Apple TV app and a Mac server that will do all the work for you – just point it to a folder full of media files on your Mac and turn it on. If you’ve already got a media server like Plex up and running, using VLC to access the movies stored there is super simple.
Launch VLC on your Apple TV, swipe left to go to the “Local Network” tab, and you’ll see your server there. Just click through to your movies and they should play without effort. What’s great here is that if your server doesn’t support certain file formats, VLC should be able to. Remote Playback Use your web browser to get videos over to your Apple TV. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac If you’re not keen on running a server off your Mac, then the next best option is to use VLC’s remote playback function.
Swipe over to the Remote Playback tab at the top of the VLC screen on your Apple TV, and then you’ll see the screen above. Click on the Enable Remote Playback button and you’ll get two addresses, one with your local IP address (above) and one with the more easily read local network address (above). Type either into your web browser and you’ll get a web page that lets you drag and drop videos into it to watch on the big screen. Web page looks like this. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac Simply drag your movie files to the web page on your Mac, and — after a quick load — they’ll start playing on your Apple TV via VLC.
Network Stream Stream stuff from Dropbox, web servers, and FTP servers on the internet. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac If you’ve got an FTP or web server out there on the internet, you can use VLC to watch any videos you might have stored there. VLC for iOS also lets you connect with Dropbox and Google Drive, though I was unable to get a video I have stored on Dropbox to play on my Apple TV, your mileage may vary, and I’m sure the VideoLan team will have this up and working in no time. If you know the URL of your video file, swipe over to the “Network Stream” tab in VLC for Apple TV and type it in. It’s tedious if it’s a long URL (I’m looking at you, Dropbox!), but once you’ve typed it in correctly, VLC will keep the last several URLs in there for you, which means you only have to do it once for each specific file. Now you’ve got three fairly easy ways to get any video you like up on your big TV via the Apple TV and VLC – enjoy, and let us know if you have any problems getting these to work.