Regardless, I “backgraded” to 10.3.7 just now – it took about fifteen minutes and I lost *nothing*. I thought, at the very least, I’d have to reinstall drivers but no, everything transferred over, drivers included. I’m now installing a few patches – all but 10.3.8 (heh). DTS is now passing through properly again! I’m a very happy pup!

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=916

I ended up getting the Sonica Theater, hooked it up via coax and, because of their truly crappy documentation, had a devil of a time understanding what it was doing.

Because the thing was connected solely by coax, the system would recognize it as a valid output device and thus allow you to select it from the system preferences and configure various aspects of a stereo signal (but not the surround channels). Because it wasn’t conencted to the audio outs, however, selecting anything greater than 2.0 in their app was an exercise in frustration, since it would indicate that test signals were being sent but nothing would issue from the speakers. Unfortunately, it took me a day or two to figure out that you had to launch the Sonica app and switch it to “Digital” before it would allow you to choose the Digital pass-through from the DVD Player app… but then, other apps that don’t push through the digital out can’t be heard so you have to launch their freakin’ app to change outputs. Menubar item, anyone? or better yet, automated switching?

Regardless, by the time I’d figured all of this out, I’d already applied 10.3.8 and the DTS had become unlistenable. ARGH!

I suppose I could do a re-install… if I were reasonably certain it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time.

I wonder if, instead, I could just use three 1/8 stereo splitters and hook it up to the 5.1 inputs on my receiver… It wouldn’t be DTS and I’d have to use VLC for software AC-3, I think… Patience… patience… I hear they’re working on a Tiger update, which would be decent, as Sonica’s current software is really stale and, as mentioned, their documentation is truly horrible and their customer service isn’t particularly knowledgeable.

Frustrating…

10.3.9, anyone?

At least I cant think of anything else I applied other than 10.3.8 befire DTS stopped working.