[MPlayer-dev-eng] How to retrieve the actual number of audio channels?

[Ingo Brückl]

wm4 wrote on Tue, 25 Mar 2014 14:49:36 +0100:

> This is how spdif works in the first place. I don't know the history,
> but it appears to be a dirty hack to transfer compressed data over a
> connection that was made for PCM only. The receiver looks at the bits,
> and if it finds a frame header (or whatever), it decides it's
> compressed data, otherwise PCM.

OK, *now* I'm understanding.

The 2 ch audio *is* the AC3 pass-through S/PDIF data - just somehow
processed.

I was thinking that "pass-through" really meant passing through, i.e. no
normal audio decoding/processing, but just passing the data one by one to
the interface. Therefore I couldn't understand why there is an additional
(as I thought) 2 ch audio besides the already (as I thought) passed-through
S/PDIF data.

Thanks a million for your explanations.

Ingo