SPDIF AUDIO 5.1 Discreet

[Charles Avanti]

Here’s a post from “markwww” on the Sony Media Software” forum. You have to use 3 mini-plugs, not SPDIF.

https://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=420602

Here is the short answer per Mark:
As I attempted to explain in my previous reply, to send multichannel audio via the S/P-DIF requires it to be compressed/encoded to a single datastream using something like AC3 or DTS. To use a setup like this for mixing/monitoring surround audio with Vegas would require the six audio channels to be encoded to AC3 “on the fly” and Vegas cannot do this (and nor can any of its competitors as far as I know).

This means that (for mixing/monitoring surround audio in Vegas) you need to feed the audio to the amp/speaker system via separate uncompressed connections, usually three stereo pairs – you cannot use a single S/P-DIF connection for this purpose. (You can use the S/P-DIF connection for surround audio that is already encoded to AC3, for example from a DVD or a a game, but not for audio that is not already encoded to AC3, such as that coming from a Vegas surround mixing session.)

To explicitly answer your question: There is no card (either above or below $100) that can allow you to use the single S/P-DIF connection for surround mixing/monitoring in Vegas. Any soundcard must use separate uncompressed (usually analog) connections for this purpose. And to hear the surround audio from Vegas you are going to need an amp/speaker system which can accept these separate multichannel inputs.

Charlie

[Mark]

Charlie,
Thank you for getting me the answer.
Mark