[mythtv-users] SPDIF Optical Out Sound Card

Michael Donaghy mdonaghy at michaeldonaghy.com
Mon Mar 2 14:50:31 UTC 2009


On Mon, Mar 02, 2009 at 10:02:21AM -0300, gonzalo diethelm wrote:
> > From: Allen Edwards
> >
> > I was told by ASUS that all their motherboards have spdif connectors
> > on them.

I've been looking quite a lot at the ASUS boards.  Some are optical
spdif, and some are coaxal spdif.

> This is interesting to me. My old laptop is an Asus and it has two
> miniplug sockets, one with the icon of a mike and the other with both
> the icon of headphones AND the sign "S/PDIF" next to it. From what you
> say, it might be possible that this plug functions as both.

spdif is used for carrying a digital audio stream, including DTS &
DD5.1.  The RCA jacks on your TV cary a magnetic analog signal.
Unless you have an audio-video receiver that you can plug a spdif cable
into, you'll be using headphone cable with RCA plugs.

> Now, what could I do with that S/PDIF connection? Are there any cables
> that would allow me to plug that into a composite audio input (two RCA
> connectors) on my TV? Would that be better than using a cable with a
> stereo miniplug on one end and the composite plugs on the other?
> 
> Thanks for any pointers,

Headphones jack is analog, just like the RCA input on the TV.  ASUS
might be reusing a single port for two different functions.  When I did
a non-myth bulid on a box with ASUS motherboard a year ago, I seem to
recall I could change the behavior/encoding of the audio ports in bios.

Michael


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