High Bitrate Audio on Sky Arts HD

[UV101]

They should really make it more clear in that article that this applies to using the cd drive as standalone player (do any drives actually incorporate audio player controls anymore?). It comes over a bit misleading as it reads at the moment.

* if you are looking to use a cdrom standalone, you can buy controllers on eBay*

I was just using this article to point out that if you are able to connect the cdrom inside you're computer in 'this' manor, you can potentially also use the same connection on the soundcard as a sp/dif input from an external source (in this particular case sp/dif out on the sky hd box!)

Are you sure the older sky hd boxes don't have sp/dif out??? On the 1st generation, they had component out. Without sp/di as well you wouldn't get the DD facility?!

[MartinT]

I have a very first generation Thomson Sky HD box and it definitely has optical S/PDIF out.

[Maximum]

* if you are looking to use a cdrom standalone, you can buy controllers on eBay*

I was just using this article to point out that if you are able to connect the cdrom inside you're computer in 'this' manor, you can potentially also use the same connection on the soundcard as a sp/dif input from an external source (in this particular case sp/dif out on the sky hd box!)

Are you sure the older sky hd boxes don't have sp/dif out??? On the 1st generation, they had component out. Without sp/di as well you wouldn't get the DD facility?!

That's fair enough, I got your reason for quoting the article. I just feel the article needs to be more clear about the transfer method it's referring to. It confused me for a few seconds until I re-read the one line that clears the issue up, that this only applies to playing straight from the drive to the soundcard (dae I think it's called). Of course most software thats plays cd audio nowadays goes through the ide interface which is inherently digital. Not everyone might pick up on this though and may think an analogue signal is passed through the computer, then digitised into the soundcard. I was pretty sure you weren't thinking that due to some of your previous posts, but others may be misled by the authors lack of distinction.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

It's an old failsafe installation habit that is becoming increasingly unnecessary as televisions change.
I still have a CRT, and it can detect an RGB input from a scart source. However, not all CRT TVs had this feature. So the Sky installation chaps used to tune in a channel for the RF Sky output from the box.
Which meant that the user could always get Sky by picking the programmed channel, assuming that selecting the RGB scart input was beyond the user.

Don't laugh at the last comment - my missus still can't get from BBC1 to ITV1 without going through all of the menus, and we've had Sky+ for over 6 years now.
Sad, isn't it ?

Chris

isnt it fantastic that sky instaltion people are trained to put things in holes rather than actually understand the equipment, and properly demonstrate it to customers
i wonder if the slightly higher level of training for staff would cost less or more than the millions of superfluous rf fly leads