Many (most?) FTA receivers seem to support digital audio only as far as relaying the digital signal to a port (SPIDIF usually).
This leaves the user with the task of finding something to decode the digital signal. Most high-end home theater systems will do so these days, but many people, like myself, have perfectly adequate home theater systems/amplifiers which just do not support digital signals and their decoding.
You would think that it would be fairly simple to find a standalone digital to analog decoder. However, this is not the case. In the reviews ection there is a review of the Creative Extigy box which apparently works well in this role. However, this is now obsolete, and the Creative replacement is carefully engineered to REQUIRE connection to a computer before it will work, presumably to block its use in this sort of application and force people to look at some of their much more expensive solutions.
I can't find any other standalone decoder anywhere in the US !!!???!!!
However, there is a far-east company which produces something which looks very interesting and appropriate -- it just doesn't appear to have any distributors in the US.
This seems like a business opportunity for someone (Sadoun ??).
The item is viewable here: http://jazzspeakers.english.eyp.com.tw/eyp/front/bin/ptdetail.phtml?Part=DE005&Category=200011096
Various reviews (seemingly good) can be found via Google.
If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be pleased to hear about them.
This leaves the user with the task of finding something to decode the digital signal. Most high-end home theater systems will do so these days, but many people, like myself, have perfectly adequate home theater systems/amplifiers which just do not support digital signals and their decoding.
You would think that it would be fairly simple to find a standalone digital to analog decoder. However, this is not the case. In the reviews ection there is a review of the Creative Extigy box which apparently works well in this role. However, this is now obsolete, and the Creative replacement is carefully engineered to REQUIRE connection to a computer before it will work, presumably to block its use in this sort of application and force people to look at some of their much more expensive solutions.
I can't find any other standalone decoder anywhere in the US !!!???!!!
However, there is a far-east company which produces something which looks very interesting and appropriate -- it just doesn't appear to have any distributors in the US.
This seems like a business opportunity for someone (Sadoun ??).
The item is viewable here: http://jazzspeakers.english.eyp.com.tw/eyp/front/bin/ptdetail.phtml?Part=DE005&Category=200011096
Various reviews (seemingly good) can be found via Google.
If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be pleased to hear about them.
