SPIDF - any real world uses?

[markpar]

IIRC (and I'm likely dead wrong), there's also an optical SPDIF (a la lightpipe), but it only carries two channels as well... Mostly consumer users, yes?

Yeah, mostly consumer. But my Tascam CD writer, Finalize, M2000, Fireworx all have optical SP/DIF I/O.

-mark

[SLiM BiLT]

I had a Sony Minidisk deck that had optical SPDIF in/outs. It was handy for transfering stuff from MD straight into my MOTU 828.

[ottokbre]

yeah, MD has light I/O and so does my freaky little Boss tracker. I'll have to track donw an interface for my 'pooter to dump stuff in there via light pipe.

[TapeOpHillary]

Finding a coax SPDIF cable longer than 10 feet isn't fun

yeah, but you can use a regular coax cable (like RG-6 or whatever) and make it as long as you like - use a BNC to RCA adapter if you have to.

[soundispatch]

Ooh, with a SPDIF out built right onto your computer you can actually pull DTS encoded tracks right off a CD or DVD onto your computer and fire them out the SPDIF port to an AV receiver and do surround sound presentations, etc. DTS tracks look just like CDA or WAV files just as long as you don't change or manipulate or compress them at all.

i kind of wonder if it?s as easy as all that. can spdif carry discrete multi-channel encoding? i know dolby surround matrix would probably be no problem but i suppose it depends on the audio drivers on the computer.

very soon, av receivers will be equipped with usb interfaces, as well as hdmi, so i wonder how long spdif will be applicable for running dvds out of your computer.

-cal

[Katsu]

S/PDIF is normally stereo, but can carry DTS/AC3 signals.

These are 5.1 files encoded into a stereo stream, and sound like very nasty noise, until put through a decoder to turn them back into 5.1.

This is very handy for testing 5.1 mixes, as you can make a 5.1 mix, encode it to AC3, then cut it to a CD (cause it looks like a stereo 16 bit file).

If you take the S/PDIF out of the CD to a decoder, it turns back to 5.1.

So, a cheap and easy way to test 5.1 mixes without burning DVD's.

Just don't EVER try listening to the unencoded analog out of the CD, as its SOOO nasty, you will fear for your speakers.

Will

[kylethompson]

Another use for SPDIF (at least for PT LE users like myelf) is as an aux i/o for an external reverb or delay equipped with digital i/o. Since this is the only input I don't use when tracking, I leave my reverb patched to the spdif i/o all the time.

Kyle

[tubejay]

I used to have a digi001 and an Apogee Rosetta, and I used the SPDIF in to give me ten inputs, and it also allowed me to use the high quality Apogee Word Clock for everything. SPDIF is VERY useful, for a lot of applications. I just wish it was able to carry more data.