[mythtv-users] optical vs coax (was My Ultimate Mythtv?)

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Wednesday, Sep 17, 2003, at 23:58 US/Pacific, Per Åge Sørvik wrote:

> Yes, but then you are talking about an error situation. My point here 
> is that conversion from electrical to optical isn't a lossy operation 
> in itself, as was implied in your original statement ("is bound to 
> have a wee bit more loss of signal"). BTW, the signal that goes out on 
> the coax cable also goes through a translation, albeit not a change of 
> physical media.

I have to admit I started down this road based solely on the comments 
of an audiophile friend whom I trust (mostly), and he swears coax is 
better. To me, the difference between the two is indistinguishable. My 
friend is also the same person that used to do ogg encodings of all his 
music at something like 512, but stopped and switched to flac, because 
he was still concerned about loss...

>>> and the fact that toslink probably is multimode fiber, not 
>>> singlemode.
>>
>> Not sure.
>
> Well, I'm pretty sure, but I'm to lazy to check it out :)

I did a cursory search for info (5 second googler) and didn't find much 
of anything on the topic.

> I guess the case of availabilty of high quality long optical cables 
> for toslink is what keeps them out of use. High quality coax cables 
> are  much more readily available.

Price is probably a big factor here...

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

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