What DAC will work with a satilite dish?

[Jeff]

I'm interested in the Benchmark DAC1. It's my understanding it will only work with a pcm format.

Is there any stand alone DAC which can also decode AC-3 format? It would be great to be able to upconvert the digital music channels as well as 2 channel broadcasts off the tv.

Thanks, Jeff

[locomk]

not sure if any take ac-3, but you may be able to set your satelite box to pcm only and then use a dac, but satelite music channels are compressed and using a dac may not be better.

[Jeff]

You are correct! It's great when the answers your hoping for are true.

I was under the impression that all satilite feeds from Direct TV were DD when fed through my new high def decoder. I was also told this from several individuals.
Reality has proved otherwise.

Upon further investigation, the music channels, which are XM radio, are all:
16 bit
48khz
1536 kbps bitrate
Catogory is identified as "broadcast-USA"

When red book cd's are playing, they are identified as:
16 bit
44 khz
1411 kbps bitrate
catogory is identified as "CD-DA IEC60908"

Regarding the information above, my Sony 777ES receiver provided this information. It provides this information on whatever input is being played.

Based upon this information, it doesn't appear compressed. I'll admit I'm only 90% on the no compression thing. But so far it looks pretty good.

Jeff