Possible stereo input if you use Apple Brand TRS to USB C cable?

[tripletopper]

I was calling Apple trying to figure out how to get stereo output from my video game to be inputted to my Macintosh

At first I asked do I have to buy a license to operate stereo input as a feature sort of like how quick time used to have certain things you had to pay extra for to get better?

Apple said no

Then I thought do I have to work through GarageBand in order to unlock stereo audio capture.

Using my current capture card for audio the answer it was impossible despite using GarageBand.

Then I asked does Apple themselves or does someone else with the Apple seal approval have a brand of either RCA left right or TRS connector that will work Macintosh. Apple said they do. They have a USB C to TRS connector.

I asked if it's stereo or mono they said it was stereo.

I asked was it for input or for output they said it could be defined for either.

It's coming to me by Tuesday and because it's a genuine Apple brand product they'll help me with it try to get it work with stereo with obs.

There might even be the hidden feature that they have the optical TRS cable where you buy the adapter for TRS to turn it into an optical device that works with Toslink

Unfortunately they said it was USBC but I said could I use a c female to email adapter they said yes I asked does it have to be an apple brand of such a device they said it doesn't even have to be Apple Authorized for it to work because Apple has no power over the USB standard versus other companies.

And best of all the price was right it was $9.99 for a USBC male to TRS female. All you got to do is buy a TRS extension cord which I have a few extra of and I should get it in stereo.

I'm surprised no one told me that this was the way you get stereo on Macintosh if this truly works.

If it's about the same price as the imitators? why not get the genuine thing and be sure it's going to work and get help getting it work even if it fails.

If this exceeds Tuesday I'm going to see a bunch of streamers go on the Apple store and order these USB C to TRS adapters for 10 bucks a piece.

I'll report you on Tuesday on both my two macintoshes and tell you how well it works.

 

[tripletopper]

Well it turns out their cables are output only no input.

I asked the local Best buy people if the only thing you're using a computer for is streaming out on Twitch and if Apple is intentionally monofying all stereo inputs, would it be counterproductive to stick with mac and instead pick something else to go with? And Best buy pretty much said yes.

By the way I tried to do this I tried to take the stereo input of the Turtle Beach DSS and split it into left and right channels on RCA then route those two to two separate USB capture cards and then try to get them to be the left and right extreme pans on the stage of obs, and guess what, based on the level gauges it's impossible to stereo mix on a Macintosh with stereo inputs. It's even impossible to declare them as two separate mono inputs and then separate those.

Considering I do most of my major computing like viewing websites, working on spreadsheets, and working on writing my websites on my Android, maybe I should take the plunge and sell sell my Mac to my mom who has a 2012 Mac as her only Mac, keep my 2018 Mac which is an Intel back and find a way to get Windows on it which should be possible because it was the last of the Intel Macs. I understand I lose its Macintosh-ness like using boot camp and putting it in PC mode. If it wasn't for outstreaming on Twitch I don't think I'd be using my computer at all. I do everything on my phone.

The only thing I got to convince my folks is that PCS are not virus ridden vermin that you need to spray in order to share a network with a Mac.

The most exotic thing I'll probably do with my PC would be Fightcade.

I heard I don't even need an expensive PC if I'm broadcasting games for my consoles.

Like for example a computer with twice the memory and 2 years newer is $200 less than what I paid for my Mac Mini. That one is at Best buy and is a $320 Hewlett-Packard mini desktop.

The one thing I need is thunderbolt 4 because I got lots of stereo cameras running not necessarily simultaneously but three pairs simultaneously, an apple had funny limits with cameras before. And I heard the PC could do something the Mac can't rename the USB tree to something you want so that each camera has a unique name and you don't have to worry about name sharing with a PC.

By the way is there another operating system that has OBS available besides Linux. Is there a Chromebook version of obs, which would be kind of along the lines of my Android? I heard all Chromebooks are are Androids with enough power to be a home computer but not portable enough to take with you while running.

For last 25 years I've been in the Mac ecosystem, and me using the phone makes me like my Mac less and less. And I think this monofying of all inputs into one mono track that cannot be stereo separated even if you go out of your way to try to stereo separate it is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I thought Macs we're supposed to work on the road as plug and play and use what you want. If you can't even get stereo inputs on a stream on a Mac and if the only thing I do on a Mac is out streaming on Twitch why do I have a Mac, other than legacy?


I read just as Max gets cheaper and cheaper throughout the years to compete against PCs, PCs get friendly and cleaner every year after year to compete against Macs.

Is the lack of stereo inputs enough to kick you off the Mac ecosystem? If I were on my own I would say yes but I got to worry about a home network. Is there a way you could have an internal firewall around just the PC. I don't want to affect their use of the Mac.

I tried technical support trying to work with the people to get it in Stereo. I tried seeing if there was a stereo input license I could buy from the Mac store. I tried to buy official Mac stuff and they have no official Apple-made or apple-Endorsed (with their proper logo) input for TRS.

What other choice is there if I want to make my stream livelier and not be in mono?

 

[CattoRayTube]

The Apple C to TRRS should work with input and output if a four pole 3.5mm cable is used. Those cables have one more band in the connector than your average TRS AUX lead, and I suggest you double check what it is you are using before saying with certainty that you cannot use the dongle as an input (no idea about stereo input, though). They'd be pretty awful with wired mobile phone headsets if you couldn't use the mic ;)

What cameras are you using which don't output audio over the same connector/set of connectors as video, though? HDMI, USB and FireWire should all just carry audio over the same connector, and coax converter boxes usually take audio and video.

"Is the lack of stereo inputs enough to kick you off the Mac ecosystem?" Well, no, because that's just not true. If it's true for you, you'll fast run out of ecosystems to jump from. I'll leave you to figure out the Chrome stuff on your own. Just remember that if you try one, Google will be able to figure out a lot about you, too :)

A warning, though: the cheap PCs you mentioned might not have the bandwidth or bus power you might need for your cameras. They might, though – details help.

 

[CattoRayTube]

What cameras are you using which don't output audio over the same connector/set of connectors as video, though? HDMI, USB and FireWire should all just carry audio over the same connector, and coax converter boxes usually take audio and video.

Sorry to double post, just remembered I literally own a motion jpeg HDMI dongle which doesn't relay audio from the source. Disregard that question from me.