[alsa-devel] Emulated IEC958 Card

[Jassi Brar]

Hi,

 Ok, so there is already the iec958 plugin, but wouldn't it be nice to have an
'Emulated IEC958-Card' driver that implements implements all the possible
components of the IEC958-cum-AES/EBU specification. The user could have
the look and feel of a real card via ALSA control and audio i/f ....
User Data can be
provided too (which lacks in the iec958 plugin ?)

This driver might be boon for low-end embedded devices which have neither IEC958
controller in the SoC nor a codec chip that supports it. In fact the
SPDIF controller
of one SoC that I know implements only a subset of the standard with
limitations.

The only requirement for the emulated-iec958 card would be a shifter
with deep enough
fifo, that can shift out bits at around 6Mbps (for 48KHz Stereo). And
most SoCs have
such a resource available that can be put to the use -- OMAP has
McBSP, Samsung's
and other SoCs can leverage a SPI controller.

Any suggestions welcome.

Regards,
Jassi

PS: I start the topic upon insistence from Angat
<yadi.brar01 at gmail.com>, a grad student who
wanted to implement the feature for his univ project on his beagle board.