2. digital
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Naive question about digital encoding

I have what it likely a very naive question about the digital input to my DAC, but its puzzled me for a while and I'd like to understand what's happening.

I have an older DAC that I have connected to my DVD player which acts as a transport. Regardless of whether I play CD's or DVD's, the whole thing works and the system sounds fine. The DAC is designed to accept a 16 bit/44 khz signal, and I assume that the DVD audio is encoded at 24/96. What's happening with the DAC when I play DVD audio through it? I would expect to hear nothing intelligible since the formats presumably aren't the same, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Can anyone explain what's being output by the DVD player in both cases, and how the DAC is able to interpret both types of input?

Thanks, Ken
kjg

Showing 1 response by hearhere

hearhere
55 posts
 
You won't get anything in the DVD-A format per se through your DAC, as the player will not pass the DVD-A signal through its digital outputs. To hear the DVD-A, you need to use the player's analog outputs.

What you're getting from the DVD player's digital output is (probably) already 16/44.1 stereo, regardless of whether you're playing a CD, DVD-A or DVD-V. At least some DVD players can be setup to output 96kHz, however, for those DACs (and sources) which support it.
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