In message <19980925074913.A23859@reilly.home>, "Andrew Reilly" writes:
>On Thu, Sep 24, 1998 at 07:44:04PM +0200, Lennart Augustsson wrote:
>
>Is it reasonable to configure a USB sound system for more than
>two channels?  Would DVD-style five-or-six channels work?  Would
>eight be possible?

Are you asking about 6 channels in general, or 6 channels specifically
from a DVD source?

The Dolby Digital (aka AC-3) encoding found on most DVD-Video discs
does not necessarily imply all 6 channels.  It's just an encoding
format, which can be anything from 1 channel Mono to the full 5.1
L/R/C/RL/RR/Sub.

It would be Really Cool to be able to pop a DVD into a NetBSD box with
a DVD-ROM drive and get 5.1 Dolby Digital out of USB speakers.  But
assuming everything else were in place, having a software DD decoder
would be the kicker.  Somehow I doubt that's feasible.  I don't know
of any sound cards offhand that do DD either, but we can dream... :)