Audio Systems: Mac surround sound, macworld article, home theatre receiver

Question
I have some large (≈600 MB) 5.1 surround sound files in FLAC format.

When I play them with VLC using my MacBook Pro's digital output into my home theatre receiver, these FLAC files produce only 2 channel stereo.

However if I play some 5.1 .AC3 files the same way, full 5.1 surround is indeed produced.

Is there a way to play 5.1 FLAC files on a Mac and output surround sound?

Alternatively, is there a way to burn them to disc and play them in my Blu-ray or DVD player and hear 5.1 surround that way?

Answer
Sorry, I am not an expert on the FLAC lossless ac3 codec at all.

Did you see this answer from another ALLEXPERTS commenter?

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Macintosh-OS-1063/2011/11/surround-sound-files-macboo

See also this discussion from a MACWORLD article:

http://www.macworld.com/article/160651/2011/06/

how_to_find_and_play_high_resolution_audio_on_the_mac.html

There are many forum and MAC comment files around FLAC conversion and other aspects of high resolution, multichannel audio that are interesting but I don't know how far you want to go in detailing this issue.

This may help if you are willing to convert to AC3:

http://www.riverpast.com/en/support/tutorials/convert/flac/ac3.php

Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes.