I'm thinking of building a HTPC at some point in the near future, because HD is becoming like the Betamax/VHS and +/- RW wars so I want upgradability.

That said I'm going to have a full sized tower with 3, Bluray, HD DVD and multiregion SD DVD, 5.25" drives in which gives me a problem with getting the SPDIF out to pass to my surround sound amp. Obviously each of the drives will have a SPDIF out which normally gets plugged into the soundcard SPDIF in, unfortunately soundcards only have one or, at most, two SPDIF ins.

Will the soundcard produce a SPDIF out if there are no ins plugged in? are the ins just to give you a passthrough? I'm confused

 

not entirely sure what you're asking, but the best thing would be to look at a 3rd-party device to handle your digi audio signals. eg a digi switcher.
However, these are usually expensive, as they also have the TOS link (lightpipe) and AES (proper digital )......

I also depends on how good the soundcard is as to whether or not it will generate a SPDIF signal (usually not though)

Hope this helps in some way

Dan

 

Yes. Yes-ish.

Afaik, spdif on the drive outputs for cd audio only?

 

yep

Dan

 

Ahh fanks guys