> I Dont believe i have seen one program which is able to control the
> digital stream of a sound cards Optical output. I find it very
> strange that
> when i play a cd on computers cd drive (Which is conected to the
> sound card
> through its SPDIF input) it comes out of the Optical Ouput UNFORMATTED i
> find this unbelieveable. If i am correct dont cd players which
> have TOSLink
> outputs on them just output exactly what is on the cd in digital form,
> expect for the SCMS protection which is obviously added thus allowing for
> track markers etc etc etc, SO why the hell when i am going DIGITAL
> Connection from CD drive(SPDIF OUT) TO Digital connection ON
> soundcard(SPDIF
> IN) TO digital optical OUT on livedrive their is no digital track
> info. That
> must mean the sound card is UNFORMATTING the infomation, amazing......
The difference here being that a CD player (in the digital recording sense)
has one purpose; to read the data off a a CD, convert it into a digital
stream and output it through the TOSLink port.
A computer soundcard will have many different inputs (either physical
inputs, like CD-ROM in, line in, mic etc - or mp3s/wav files being played in
software), and none of them can gain exclusive use of the soundcard. The
digital out on a soundcard is mostly meant for connection to a set of
speakers that supports digital input, or an external DAC (neither of which
will care about trackmarks anyway).
The digital out just takes whatever's being played at the time (be it mp3s,
windows sounds or gaming noises) and bypasses the DAC, instead putting it
out through the digital out. It isn't so much "unformatting" the information
as just ignoring the irrelevant stuff. If you're not recording (and for most
people, most of the time this will be the case) there's no need for
trackmarks, the software won't know what to do with them, so it just takes
the raw S/PDIF info, ignoring SCMS and trackmarks.
The fact is that no soundcard is designed with MD recording in mind (I know
Xitel have a load of MD blurb on their website, but they just take a
reference Aureal design and resell it). Coupled with the fact that many
CD-ROM drives don't output "proper" S/PDIF either, it's not something that's
high on a company's priorities when they're making a soundcard.
> My real question is, is it possible to control the digital stream from my
> sound card?!!????.......
Theoretically yes, but it'd require the device to be "locked", so that it
will only accept a stream from your playback software or CDROM (and put in
the trackmarks itself when it decided it needed to). Try asking your
soundcard manufacturer if they'll consider adding this feature to the
drivers (the ability to pass a S/PDIF stream straight through the card
without changing any of it).
Failing that, just buy a CD player with an optical output - here in the UK
you can pick one up for less than 60UKP, or if you've got the time/skills
rig up an optical out from your CDROM drive (parts cost less than $15) -
several plans are available on minidisc.org.
--
Simon
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