Yeah we were in talks with several companies (including Apple) who promised us discounts and stuff, but it's all moving so slowly that we decided we would just look for a 2nd hand model ourselves. I just put out several bids today.
After receiving my new DD receiver this week, I was finally able to hook it up to the G5, and test to find the issues with Digital Encoded Audio output. And i'm happy to report that after a few days, I am now able to get encoded audio outputted !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will need to make some core changes in VLC, and revamp the old-style encoded audio output support, but a full blown audio support that should work with almost ANYTHING out there atm, is VERY close now.
I would like to thank everyone again for their donations. As you may have read the G5 will also become our new (nightly-)buildserver of the OSX build, so it will keep serving a very important purpose.
Please test this nightly on your audio devices.
If you want to output to the SPDIF port, you will need to select "Your devicename (Encoded Output)" in VLCs Audio Device submenu of the Audio Menu.