david@oahu.uucp (01/20/90)
I have a Sony CD player (audio) and it has this multi-pin connector in the back called "Subcode out." The manual mentions using it for connecting to "future equipment." Can this be used to hook up to a Mac? David Dantowitz david@cs.ucla.edu Singing Barbershop when I'm not computing...
blob@apple.com (Brian Bechtel) (01/22/90)
In article <31064@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> david@oahu.uucp writes: > I have a Sony CD player (audio) and it has this multi-pin connector in > the back called "Subcode out." The manual mentions using it for > connecting to "future equipment." Can this be used to hook up to > a Mac? Both audio CDs and CD-ROMs are encoded using the same standard. CDs have eight subcoding channels labeled P through W which contain some information. Subtrack P contains a simple music track separator. Channel Q contains control information such as track number, track type, and location (minutes, seconds, frames). During the lead-in track, channel Q contains table of contents information for the disc, with track number and starting location of each track. The other six channels aren't used in any standard way; there have been some proposed standards that these tracks include labelling information (e.g. track name) or graphics (e.g. the CD-Graphics standard Sony is trying to promulgate.) This "Subcode out" connector is probably meant to allow access to all eight subcodes so that graphics, text, etc. could be processed by an external component. Notice this all has nothing to do with an external device taking control of a CD. If you want this, you need a CD-ROM drive, not (most) audio CD drives. This is "subcode out", not "commands in". --Brian Bechtel blob@apple.com "My opinion, not Apple's"