Why oh why dvd-roms don't come with digital audio cable?

[theplanb]

What is the point of having digital audio out when there is no cable?
I don't get it.. how hard can it be.. to replace analogue ones to the digital one.

 

[AndyHui]

Not every sound card has the CD Digital SPDIF plug/pins.

If you have WinME, Win2K or WinXP, you don't even need that cable if you enable CD Digital Audio.....the music data is sent over the IDE cable instead.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< What is the point of having digital audio out when there is no cable?
I don't get it.. how hard can it be.. to replace analogue ones to the digital one. >>

Just go to Radio Shack.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

It's for cd audio only, no use for other things.
From SB Live retail version, Creative bundles it, so cd-rom/dvd-rom drive makers don't need to bundle it.

 

[Sugadaddy]

Use a real OS and you won't need it...

 

[neuralfx]

well thats like asking "why oh why printers dont come with cables" .. how do you think money is made, device like printers are maybe only marked up a few dollars, but the accessories are marked up 1000% ..
-neural

 

[cuteybunny]

dvd will not have any use for it, it is mp3 encoded duh

 

[Ultima]

<< dvd will not have any use for it, it is mp3 encoded duh >>


AAC encoded you mean? DVD audio (NOT video) discs are not compressed though

 

[HappyPuppy]

I've been meaning to ask this question so let me do a minor hijack of the thread, I need clarification.

I'm on Win98SE with TBSC, so that's the starting point. The digital cable is only for playing MP3's? It has no function for music CD's or DVD's? Can I have both the analogue and digital cables connected between my DVD player and sound card at the same time?

My thanks for answers and appologies for going slightly OT.

 

[RolyL]

No, the digital CD audio cable has nothing to do with DVDs or MP3s. It is simply an alternative path for CDDA (standard music CD digital audio) to travel down to get to the soundcard. Other ways would be an analogue cable with a molex or, as stated above, using Windows 2000/XP's feature 'enable CD Digital Audio' to transfer the data over the IDE bus. In order of preference, the digital cable if possible should be used, followed by the IDE cable, followed by the analogue cable. The problem with IDE is that older games (e.g. Motorhead) often don't bother reading Windows's setting and lose CD audio as a result.

 

[HappyPuppy]

So you wouldn't want the analog and digital cables at the same time?

 

[Kingofcomputer]

I'm using SB Live, I used to connect both cables from my cd-rom to it, I find that it's very annoying that win98 always mute digital cd at start. When I want to play music cd, I've to mute the analog cd in speaker, and unmute the digital cd. So now I only use analog cd cable, and take out the digital cd cable.

 

[RolyL]

Happy Puppy: Only one cable need be connected at any one time

Kingofcomputer: I'm surprised. Win98 and the SBLive! CD digital worked just fine for me. Try reinstalling the latest Creative drivers?

 

[CdnMade]

Kingof computers, i know thissounds weier but reverse wthe positions of the cables on your sblive card. I had to do it on a customers system yesterday to get both drivers to play cd audio, why? beats the hell outa me but it worked.

 

[RolyL]

You are just using one of the cables, aren't you? There's no need to use both, and you're possibly confusing the Live!'s mixer. Maybe the driver assumes only one of the two CD feeds is enabled (either analogue or digital but not both) and this is causing your problem.

 

[mdXtreme3d]

<<

<< dvd will not have any use for it, it is mp3 encoded duh >>


AAC encoded you mean? DVD audio (NOT video) discs are not compressed though >>



Wrong. DVD-Audio discs are compressed using MLP - Meridian Lossless Packing. The difference between MLP and DD/DTS is that when it is decompressed, the resulting audio is identical to the original (pre-compressed) version, which is not the case with DD/DTS (as they are lossy compression formats).

 

[Kingofcomputer]

I didn't mean my sb live's digital cd doesn't work.
It works, but it's muted at default everytime when windows loads, this is annoying since the analog cd is not muted at default. This is when both cables are used.

 

[RolyL]

Don't use both cables! One is quite sufficient.