# Sound cards with S/PDIF in?



## biga55 (Aug 9, 2004)

I have no clue about sound cards, but I have been looking at getting a new 5.1 sound card to go with my 5.1 speakers. I have a standlone DVD player that has a coaxial s/pdif audio output, and would like to be able to hook it up to the sound card for watching movies, etc... (would rather use it than the PC dvd player when possible).

So far I was thinking of getting an Audigy 2 NX, and adding a coaxial to toslink optical converter to be able to hook up my dvd player to the audigy since it only has an optical input. Would that setup work?

For the above setup I'm looking at about $115 and would not want to spend more. Those audigy 2 platinum cards are nice but too expensive. The Extigy would also do the job but am wondering if it is not a bit dated as compared to the audigy series. I don't know about other brands since I'm a complete noob to sound cards like I said. 

Any other recommendations/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!


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## Randyman... (Jun 30, 2004)

Why not just use the internal DVD-drive? What is the issue with using it?

If you DO insist on doing it "externally", you need to make SURE the soundcard supports a Dolby/DTS datastream on the INPUT, and not just PCM (CD audio). My M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 will output a 5.1 stream on its Coax SPDIF OUTPUT, but it won't accept 5.1 streams on its COAX SPDIF input (only PCM up to 96/24)...

NTM - you will also need a video capture card to get the DVD's S-Video into your PC, and you are adding another D/A - A/D conversion (degrading video quality). I'd just use the IDE DVD, and get the best possible quality w/o spending $ on unnecessary hardware.


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## biga55 (Aug 9, 2004)

Well, we watch movies through the TV and not the PC monitor, and the standalone gives a much better image on the TV than using the PC's DVD player with S-video out to TV. So for my setup I wouldn't pass the video to my PC, just the digital sound. Video goes straight to the TV from the DVD player. Since I am going to get a 5.1 card anyway (which I don't have), I figure I'd like to be able to decode the digital audio from my standalone too. I hope that makes more sense to you now. I am a noob with sound cards but not that noobish in general as to pass through the signals from my standalone DVD->PC->TV :chgrin: . 

You bring up a good point about the SPDIF input not necessarily being able to take in 5.1 streams, most cards seem to have quirks in one way or another. Guess I'll just have to research a lot before I choose. At least I know that the M-Audio Audiophile won't work :smile: .

I am now also looking at a low cost chaintech card and the turtle beach catalina which have s/pdif inputs.


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