This picture might help illustrate what needs to be set-up with a coaxial digital output. The player here is a Pioneer CLD-59 that only has a coax digital out and the signal is fed to this board from what would have been an optical output.



But in all seriousness, you really need to find out if the optical cut out actually goes back to the DSP chip. Without knowing for sure, you're basically spinning your wheels in mud @ this point.

Got it, and that mirrors what I've seen from other stuff online as well. those boards look like they take 5v+ / gnd & digital and then send it out via the RCA coax.

I hear ya on the needing to find out from the DSP if its connected, its just I need to tear apart the whole damn machine in which I just don't have the time right at this very moment. After this project is over then I'll have some free time.

Or maybe find one of those boards and try it out!! LOL.. I'm really not looking forward to tearing that machine apart.

This might be some good news even though this pic is from a Pioneer, CLD-D504 that has been modded w/ a coax digital output.


Picture courtesy of precisionlaserdisc.com



Assuming the digital signal was left intact on the 503 as the 504, you just need to make sure the other two pins for GND and +5v are active @ the optical cutout and you can use your optical output. If the +5v happens to be missing, you can still wire up a jumper from a nearby power source.

Just make sure you understand what pin is what on the transmitter and circuit board.

I"m pretty sure the the digital out isn't connected, i ordered and got that Asus SPIDF board for my computer and tried it just for fun, hooked it up to 5v+ and ground and to the digital.

Got nothing..... the red TOSLINK was lit up, and i got nothing from that or the RCA... so I'm thinking that it's not connected which sucks (just don't know their mentality about why they'd leave it open or the trace cut?).

Again, weighing if its worth going down the road of tearing it all apart just for that and risk damaging or not getting it back together correctly

There's always an extra screw or two left over

In order to save cost, a company is not going to create custom boards for each individual machine they make. The 503 board is also used for the 703 so the cutout will be there whether it's used or not. Also, it would make sense for them to not bother running the connections back to the cut out if they know it would not be used anyway (however it's odd to me that they left it intact on the 504)



That is always a risk and I guess if I was in your shoes I probably would not (unless I can verify the pin without resorting to a complete tear down).

You're probably better off modifying the player for AC3-RF instead as the points for that mod are more accessible. However, you need to build a board for that mod and obtain an AC-3RF Demodulator to make that worthwhile.

If i could get the TTL/ digital out then that would be great, but it looks its just sitting on that chip's pin which is a major bummer.

At this point, since the machine is in 100% operational capacity, I'll probably just skip this for now. I've been going more and more through my LD collection (about 35 or 40 discs including the THX demo disc which was rare at the time!)... and its always cool to watch a movie from this format.

I think I'll just start ripping all my CDs into FLAC and then just play them back through my MiBox which is already TOSLINK out into my Atmos setup. Just more time but it seems like that's all we have right now is time

Thanks for everyone's advice (esp ldfan!) and help! I'll still be around, gotta get back to M$ hell right now! Wish me luck!

Jason