The DAC is rated for 96KHz.... anyway for DVD audio you'd probably want to use the s/pdif.
On Mar 9, 2005, at 3:16 PM, Steinar Bjaerum wrote:
This means that, in theory, SB2 is capable of playing 2-channel high resolution 192/24 DVD-Audio both to analog and digital output?
Steinar
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:discuss- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sean Adams Sent: 9. mars 2005 22:10 To: Slim Devices Discussion Subject: Re: [slim] SB2 and PCM formats
DISCLAIMER: please be very clear that these are not promises that we're
going do any particular feature at any particular time, or even at all.
I will comment *to the best of my knowledge* on what the hardware could
potentially be made to do, but please don't hold me to it if we find
some reason later why some particular thing can't or won't be done.
Right now Squeezebox2 does 24 bits (s/pdif and DAC) at 44.1 and 48KHz.
A block diagram is in order:
---------------- | ip3023 cpu | ---------------- | | ---------------- | |----- 11.2896 mhz |xc9536xl CPLD | ---| |----- 12.2880 mhz | | | | ---------------- | | | ------------------- | | |_________| S/PDIF outputs | | | ------------------- | ------- | | DAC | | ------- | | -------- ______________ | +--------| AMP |------| RCA Outputs | | | -------- -------------- | | | ---------- --------- -------------- +----| CMOS |----| AMP |------| Headphone/ | | | SWITCH | --------- | geekport | | --------- --------------- | | |------------------------------------|
The really important thing to note here is that there are NONE of the usual "hard-wired" digital audio components that you'd expect to see. S/PDIF outputs are usually done using a chip like the CS8405. Also, often times there will be some "audio codec" chip in the path, which handles gain, mixing, resampling and stuff like that. We are doing ALL of this stuff in software, which gives us tremendous flexibility to tweak, tune, and improve it.
The other important point is that the digital logic which handles the
s/pdif outputs and the feeding of data to the DAC is all done in a
Xilinx gate array. If you're not familiar with CPLDs or FPGAs,
basically the idea is that instead of hard-wiring a bunch of individual
logic chips together or making a custom integrated circuit, these
programmable gate arrays allow you to create your own custom chip by
writing code. The _really_ killer thing about them is that you can
reprogram them later, which in terms of standard logic chips, is the
equivalent of making a whole new circuit board in "software". In
squeezebox2 this Xilinx chip is configured by the CPU, so we have the
ability to completely "rewire" the digital output path just about any
way we want, at any time. Hence there are some extremely interesting
possibilities for future features....
Finally, notice the geekport. Squeezebox1 had a geekport too, but it
was not really accessible because you had to open the case and solder
stuff onto the board. In Squeezebox2, the geekport is the headphone
jack! The headphone jack can be reconfigured for other modes, including
bidirectional data and IR blasting. These features are not done yet but
the hardware support is there.
Everything below this line is a ** POSSIBLE MAYBE SOMETIME DOWN THE ROAD **. --------------------
- The hardware has SEPARATE DATA PATHS for s/pdif and DAC outputs. We are not using this capability now (both are fed the same data), but it could be used perhaps for some interesting multi-channel applications. For example, we could output the encoded digital stream to a surround receiver, and also output a 2-channel stereo rendition to the DAC.
- Crsytals can easily be desoldered. The logic is driven directly by these two oscillators, so if you want to experiment with unusual frequencies or wire up an aftermarket clock source, you can.
- 96Khz should be doable with the xtals we have, maybe 192.
- All the s/pdif data is under our control. We can pretend to be AES/EBU, lie about what kind of device we are (DAT player etc), shut off the s/pdif in order to tell an amp or receiver that we're not active, etc etc.
- There are some vendor-specific/proprietary tricks that some guys are doing with s/pdif. In particular, I believe somebody has a receiver + s/pdif speaker setup that sends volume commands over the s/pdif. We could support things like this - probably they would be trivial to reverse-engineer, but we'd prefer to get cooperation.
- The geekport can potentially do some pretty crazy things - high speed
RS232 for example, auxiliary s/pdif output, house sync (word clock)
input, maybe even s/pdif INPUT, i2c, dallas 1-wire - damn near anything
you can do on two wires + ground. The only geekport feature we're
aiming to finish by ship date is IR blasting. This will allow
Squeezebox2 to power on your receiver and set it to the right input,
and later power it off automatically when you're done listening. The IR
blaster has a variable current driver so it can be set up to drive a
single LED dimly up to multiple LEDs brightly. It could also deliver
enough current to drive a small external voltage regular eg for a
microcontroller which would communicate with the SB2 over dallas
1-wire.
On Mar 9, 2005, at 11:44 AM, Steinar Bjaerum wrote:
What PCM formats are the DAC in the SB2 capable of delivering to the analog output? All the way up to 96kHz/24bits?
What PCM formats are SB2 capable of passing through to the S/PDIF digital out?
I am interested in knowing both the current status and the possibilities with future software upgrades.
Steinar
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