I want to be able to play a DVD with 5.1 sound at a banquet. Created with Apple Final Cut Studio. I have a MacPro and can run the output out the optical cable. Just don't know what to put between the Mac and the speakers. I assume I will need say, 5 amps. I can do this at home with a 5.1 home theater receiver. But I don't think think the home receiver will work for a large room. Maybe I could take the output into a mixer with pre-amps and then to the main amps.

I can't find any information searching for this type of setup. Any help will be appreciated. thanks larry

Certainly an integrated Surround amp with optical input is the easiest way of doing this. I believe that there are a couple of companies that make standalone surround decoders (e.g. Violet Audio ADP61) which you could use to hook up to a bank of PA amps or similar, but these aren't cheap!

As you've created your surround soundtrack in FCP, I assume you've encoded the files in Dolby AC3 format. If you have a core-audio compliant multi-channel audio interface you can use VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) to decode AC3 and route the audio to individual channels on your audio interface (you need to define your channels using the "Configure Speakers" button in the Audio / MIDI Set-Up Utility first).

Finally, it may be worth looking at sourcing a DVD player with built-in Dolby decoder and individual analogue audio outputs. There are a number of these available on the market, though they tend to be a little more expensive. One benefit of this technique is that these players tend to incorporate a basic calibration programme, using bursts of white noise to assist in setting the individual speaker levels.

Thank you for the information. I got a clue from your comment on the multi-channel audio interface. I have a MOTU 2408 I/O that I found out will let me assign the speakers to ports on the MOTU. So I am good to go if I run the 2408 out to preamps and amps to speakers.