SPDIF FAQ

SP-DIF

<h1>About SP-DIF or S/PDIF</h1>
<i>&copy; 1996 DJ Greaves.</i>

<p>S/PDIF is the Sony and Philips Digital Interconnect Format.  It can carry a
stereo pair of channels with a sampling rate of up to 96 Ksps (kilo-samples
per second) and with a sample precision of up to 24 bits.  The S/PDIF output
from CD players fits inside this envelope, being only 16 bits per sample at
44.1 Ksps. S/PDIF receivers can often automatically adapt to the rate and
precision being delivered to them. When different sampling precisions are
used, the most significant bit is always at the same position in the frame.
This means that if the transmitted precision is greater or lower than the
receiver can render, then the least significant bits become automatically
dropped or padded with zeros respectively.


<p>The physical link for S/PDIF carries a Biphase Manchester Coded
stream with a line level of 0.5 volts and transformer isolation at
both ends.  Manchester Coding is a class of line coding methods which
combining a data stream with a clock on a single channel where there
are up to two transitions on the line for each bit conveyed.  With
Biphase Manchester, there is a line transition at each end of a bit
period and a central transition if the data is a one.  For CD audio at
44.1 Ksps the line rate is 5.6448 megabaud and the effective data rate
is 2.8224 Mbps or 352.8 kilobytes per second.  RCA/phono sockets are
normally used.

<p> S/PDIF was first used in the commercial hi-fi world to interconnect CD
mechanisms to external DACs, however at least one hi-fi company today makes
hi-fi separates which are interconnected using S/PDIF, including an S/PDIF
pre-amplifier with digital input and output and active loudspeakers with
S/PDIF input and digital cross-overs.  S/PDIF is now widely found on DAT
players and home theatre separates.

<p> Apart from the pair of audio channels, S/PDIF also carries a
subcode similar to the subcode on CDs which indicates the current
track number and current time within the track.  For S/PDIF the only
widely used subcode component is SCMS, the serial copying management
system.  This enables a stream to be marked as an original or a copy.
A DAT recorder sold for the consumer market or digital recording
studio component should mark as a copy anything it records from the
digital input and is not supposed to allow the user to make copies of
material which is already marked as a copy.  Many contemporary DAT
recorders my be switched between the consumer and professional mode.
Other components of the subcode that delineate tracks from each
other are now becoming more widely supported.

<p> For professional digital audio, where cable runs between studios
are often needed, a precursor to S/PDIF known as AES-EBU is widely
used.  The two formats are compatible with each other for audio,
differing only in the subcode information and connector.  The
professional format subcode contains ASCII strings for source and
destination identification, whereas the commercial format carries the
SCMS. Professional equipment will use balanced XLR connectors to carry
S/PDIF over differential pair cable, as commonly used for low
impedance microphones.  A normal balanced to unbalanced cable will
allow interconnection and may devices nowadays have both XLR and RCA
connectors.  However, it is important not to use low-microphony cable,
such as posh guitar leads, for digital interconnections (including
MIDI actually) since it has very poor high frequency transmission
capabilities.

<p> A third physical media often used is plastic optic fibre.  Optical
fibre has the advantage that, since it is non-conducting, earth-loops
cannot be generated and the fibre link is imune to hum and noise
pickup.  In practice, poor quality optical fibre components sometimes
used can lead to increased jitter generation in the process of
separating clock from data in the Manchester decoder at the receiver.
This can cause a measureable degredation of the conversion back to
analogue format, but advanced design of the circuits using low
bandwidth phase-locked loops ameliorates the problem. 


2002. www.mixerton.com