Steve,
Thanks for your response to my question. I haven't been back to this thread for a few days, but if your still around maybe you can clarify something for me.
You said:
I take that to mean that you cannot extract digital information from a hard drive in S/PDIF format - it is first extracted in a different digital format and then converted to S/PDIF. My question is, where does that conversion take place and does it require a sound card? If you are saying that the conversion to S/PDIF must occur inside the computer, with the assistance of a sound card, then what does a USB DAC do that is different from a normal DAC? I was under the impression that a USB DAC converts the computer's digital format to S/PDIF as well as convert S/PDIF to analog, but I'm not really sure. Even if my impression is correct, maybe the sound card "sets up" the conversion to S/PDIF by performing some necessary preliminaries, like clocking.
I want to get the basic steps straight before tackling the details of implementation.
Thanks for your response to my question. I haven't been back to this thread for a few days, but if your still around maybe you can clarify something for me.
You said:
There is no direct S/PDIF from a computer.
I take that to mean that you cannot extract digital information from a hard drive in S/PDIF format - it is first extracted in a different digital format and then converted to S/PDIF. My question is, where does that conversion take place and does it require a sound card? If you are saying that the conversion to S/PDIF must occur inside the computer, with the assistance of a sound card, then what does a USB DAC do that is different from a normal DAC? I was under the impression that a USB DAC converts the computer's digital format to S/PDIF as well as convert S/PDIF to analog, but I'm not really sure. Even if my impression is correct, maybe the sound card "sets up" the conversion to S/PDIF by performing some necessary preliminaries, like clocking.
I want to get the basic steps straight before tackling the details of implementation.