Dolby SDU4 Hardware Dolby Stereo/Surround decoding

[deleted user]

Sure thing!

[dvdmike]

This is awesome, love the 4 channel mixes Fox used to put on their 4K discs

[spoRv]

This is awesome, love the 4 channel mixes Fox used to put on their 4K discs

Of course they have decided to do that after reading my own guide here: https://fanrestore.com/thread-395.html

[spoRv]

SDU4 is in its new home now... at 13€ (yup!) I can't abandon it to its destiny... now, when I'll be able to put in operation, would be another thing (along with finding XLR-RCA cables!)

EDIT: found this nice paper, could be useful as it has some info not found in the manual
https://dlscrib.com/downloadFile/5b5899b...905c8c2e5f

EDIT 2: according to this Dolby paper, the SDE4 (the encoder) is analog, hence the SDU4 *must* be analog, too!
https://developer.dolby.com/globalassets...manual.pdf

[spoRv]

Plan:
- get a sound card with at least 4 analog ins
- get XLR to TRS or RCA cables
- get my laserdisc player and discs
- start to test

I'm thinking about this: https://www.presonus.com/products/FP10 - found at a very nice price.
I guess a simple USB/FireWire connector should do, right?

@TomArrow: tell me, can you find cheap XLR-TRS 6.35 cables there? Here female XLR-male TRS are 20€ EACH!!! So connecting a 13€ decoder would cost 80€ + male XLR-male TRS (that "should" be only 7€/pair)...

[deleted user]

Cables aren't cheap sadly but that does seem a bit high. I get mine from thomann typically. Have you looked on ebay?

[spoRv]

Right now watched a bit on eBay; prices are around 5€ each but without shipping... continued to search locally, I've found female XLR - male TRS 6.35 for 7€, so with 7x4+7=35€ I should get everything - still 3x the price of the decoder, though!

Any idea about the Presonus? Reading a review on soundonsound, it seemed nice (at the time) so I guess that, even if not exceptional in comparison with high end units, it should suffice, with its 24bit 96kHz ADCs; if it works with VirtualDub it will be perfect... I could, for example, grab the laserdisc digital out AND the SDU4 analog out at the same time - even talking about DTS or AC3 (through demodulator)!!!

[deleted user]

I don't know much anything about the presonus unit, sorry. You could try and find RMAA (Rightmark audio analyzer) tests and spec sheets for it, that's what I usually do when researching an audio interface. Things like dynamic range, distortion (I think it's called THD, Total Harmonic Distortion), but the best thing is to find test graphs.

Edit: Can also look on the gearslutz forum for threads about it, but their opinions are usually rather subjective.

[spoRv]

Thanks for the input; found here: https://m.midifan.com/article_body.php?id=1397

for the laziest:


Not bad at all; the dynamic range is more than enough for an analog surround decoder, THD is great, so I guess I'll jump on it at 50€, what do you think?

Cables:
4x https://www.magnetola.lt/laidai-su-xlr-m...o-15m.html
2x https://www.muzikosfaktorius.lt/pd-conne...stereo-15m
so 6x7€ = 42€
please check if they are the right ones!

[deleted user]

Looks decent for that price, I say go for it. You can always upgrade later, worst case. Cables seem about right and yeah that cable price is about usual unless you can find them at a flea market as a bargain.