Nico_Noyau wrote:Thanks Equinoxe for your answer
On my laptop, there is a jack on which is written "SPDIF" and there is a red light inside the connector (my soundcard is an AC'97)
I have too an amp which has DTS and surround sound in 5.1 with coax in and optical in.
Do I need to change my material or not ? Because I don't especially want to spend too much money on that...
Or maybe I can use a surround headphone ?
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format)
S/PDIF is primarily used with CD players (and DVD players playing CDs), but has become common on other audio components like MiniDiscs, modern computer audio cards and especially european Digital Video Broadcast receivers (both satellite and terrestrial). It is also popular in car audio, where a large amount of wiring can be replaced with a single fiber optic cable, which is immune to electrical noise.I have a couple of devices which have the lightpipe connection(Korg Triton EX and D16XD both have S/pdif)
Another common use for the S/PDIF interface is to carry compressed digital AUDIO
S/PDIF is used to transmit digital signals of a number of formats, the most common being the 48 kHz sample rate format used in DAT, and the 44.1 kHz format used in CD audio. In order to support both systems, as well as others that might be needed, the format has no defined data rate. Instead the data is sent using Biphase Mark Code, which has either one or two transitions for every bit, allowing the original word clock to be extracted from the signal itself.
S/PDIF and ADAT are very similar except that ADAT carries 8 Audio signals,down the Cable whereas S/PDIF carries 2
heres the connections
Basically the audio is sent via Fibre optic cables to the receiving deivce,(converted as a light source,hence the name Lightpipe)if you plug a cable into the connectors the tip of the cable will glow..
If you have a device which has those connections then you can send audio from it direct to your PC,its a far better way of recording Audio as the signal is cleaner,although somewhat more compressed,but you get a better signal
I use the SPDIF on my triton to record the Audio from that into my DAW,as its a far better signal than conventional Jack inputs,I also use the ADAT format to transform the Analog signals form my Mixer inputs to convert it to digital to stream to the D16XD,you dont have to worry about noice overspill then
On the soundcard front,I'm not sure of the availibilty of 5:1 capable cards for laptops,I would imagine there gonna be pretty expensive for a decent sounding one given the commodity of it,plus I doubt you could just get away with buying a set of surround H/Phones and using your standard Card,as surely there needs to be some conversion to the 5:1 mode..Hmm..not quite sure on that.
