I have just purchased a pair of Meridian active speakers that will only accept a digital input. At the moment I have them hooked up directly to the SPDIF out of my M-Audio card which works great for stereo listening. The problem is for multichannel movie watching I need a stereo SPDIF out for the front L and R channels, and then analogue outs for the 3 other chanels or when I upgrade to an all Meridian speaker system 2 stereo SPDIF outs (1 for front left/right and 1 for surround left/right) and a mono SPDIF out for the center channel. So basically my question is would that be possible to do with any of the more exotic audio cards out there like RME or Lynx or will I just have to bite the bullit and buy a Meridian Surround processor?

I hope that makes sense

Thanks

Santan

Simplest and cheapest solution is probably to buy two more PCI sound cards or USB sound cards with S/PDIF. You can find a new PCI card with S/PDIF for around $15.

Thanks for the reply, are you saying it is possible to watch a film in DTS, decode it on the computer then route the front left and right to a SPDIF out on the first card, surround L and R output via SPDIF on the second card and then use a third for the Center channel?

Thanks


Santan

Exactly. I _suppose_ it is possible, in Linux using ALSA it shouldn't be too difficult, you'd have to get somebody more competent than me in Windows XP. There are quite a few here in this forum, just ask.

Superbe that could be the answer I'm looking for, anybody have any idea how I would go about doing that in XP?

With great difficulty.

The problem is that programs that DVD playing programs that do software decode of AC3 and DTS expect an 6 or 8 channel WDM sound device. All professional cards that I am aware of which have multiple digital outputs present them in pairs as stereo outputs.

The other problem is DRM, S/PDIF is a unencrypted digital interface and as such is hated by the content providers. Looking at the current state of things:

1) Most software DVD players can output 6-8 channel analogue, or pass though the AC3 or DTS stream to an external decoder via a digital output.

2) No software can play DVD-Audio. Although CyberLink claim support no one can get it to work and it seems they are lying.

3) Creative cards can play DVD-Audio but they do it in hardware and disable the digital outputs on the card when they are doing so.

4) CyberLink claim to be able to play HD-DVD and BluRay however you can bet your bottom dollar that in order to do so your video and audio driver will have to be Protected Media Path compliant so will turn off any unencrypted digital outputs. You can also bet that these restrictions will be retrospectively applied to DVD playback. It is unclear if the content companies will allow AC3 or DTS output over S/PDIF from HD-DVD or BluRay.

I suspect that all this Protected Media Path crap and automatic down sampling of all audio and video if any protected content is being played will cause most video and audio professionals to come out in hives and defect back to Mac OS.

If you are going to spend $lots on Meridian speakers I would just bite the bullet and get a Meridian G61 or G68 surround processor to go with them.

Bummer, I feared it would be difficult. I guess like you say Ill have to get a processor, my only concern with that is I don't want to spend big bucks on Meridian kit yet as I don't know how they are going to get around the Protected Media Path with regards to unencrypted SPDIF digital out to all the speakers...


Time will tell I guess.


Santan.

As far as can be told the current crop of players will output AC3 or DTS via coaxial S/PDIF. Now both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD allow other options such as DolbyHD and DTS-HD I suspect these will only be allowed out via analog or encrypted HDMI.

So currently you'd have to run analog from the player to the Meridian processor which would then redigitise it and send it to the speakers.

Considering how many times the audio would have been ADA converted during the production process this isn't necessarily the end of the world, although it would be better to skip the extra ADA conversion.

I wouldn't worry too much about HD it's going to take years for the format war to be won, if it ever is.