> Is S/PDIF hard to generate?
Computer audio chips tend to send/receive it right with pins on the main
sound chip and CD/MD equipment also tends to have it integrated at the chip
level (this is the most economical way to do it). So my guess is that it's
no big deal, if Sony has designed a special chip. Alternatively, Crystal
Semiconductor makes generic S/PDIF transmitter receiver chips.
> Make it run at a special 4X or 8x S/PDIF rate, so that a portable
> MD player could compete in downloading convenience with an MP3
> player.
4X is no big deal if Sony designs their own chips (both in the interface and
the MD). So far as I know, the highest speed that the Crystal chips run at
is 96K (there's not a big market for higher speed yet), which would at least
handle the 88.2K rate for 2X transfer. I think the fastest USB transfer
rate would limit things to 4X or so...
I'm hoping that the USB <-> MD interface is so successful that Sony starts
putting it into new recorders at the chip level. That would allow them to
produce USB-enabled MD recorders for little more than the price of the USB
connector! If they did it at the chip level, maybe they could (in the
future) revive MD data, so you could make the MD recorder do double duty.
(Although MD data disks are expensive right now, its only because the market
is extremely small compared to the audio market. If there was a large base
of MD data equipment; they price would come down. As a matter of fact,
since there's no "SCMS tax" on data disks, it could go even lower!)
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