Anyone ever heard of a digital music receiver for DirecTV?

July 25, 2005 5:52 PM

I've finally noticed and started enjoying the digital music channels that came with my DirecTV setup. But it's kind of silly to use my home theater system and DirecTV receiver just to hear some music. Does anyone know how I could hack this kind of satellite music playback into a separate stereo system? Anyone ever heard of a digital music receiver for DirecTV?
posted by mathowie to technology (8 comments total)

I was just re-reading my own post and noticed that it might be unclear.

I'm wondering if there's some sort of magic box I could connect a satellite coax into, and have RCA music out to hook to speakers. Perhaps it would have a LCD to show what channel/artist was playing.

Since I just want the music feeds, it seems silly to rig up a complete separate satellite receiver just for that.
posted by mathowie at 5:54 PM on July 25, 2005

not sure i quite follow you, but Comcast also has digital music channels which i listen to once in a while. But since my settop box is connected to my processor via a coax digital line it is same for listening to music or watching HDTV channels. Not sure why it is silly. The music sounds great and single setup works. I am probably misunderstanding your question
posted by flyby22 at 9:20 PM on July 25, 2005

What he wants is a DirecTV receiver that can only access the Music Choice channels and does not require a TV to be hooked up (because it has a display of some sort). I don't think any hardware of this sort exists, unfortunately.
posted by kindall at 9:36 PM on July 25, 2005

Yeah, what kindall said. My DirecTV receiver is also doing TiVo (combo unit), so if two things are being recorded, I can't listen to music. I couldn't find anything in google searches, but I thought there might be an outside chance someone hacked something together.
posted by mathowie at 10:15 PM on July 25, 2005

Even rephrased, the question does seem a bit unclear. Your audio feed from your STB should be either 5.1 coax or 5.1 fibre-optic. This feed carries the digital PCM two-channel stereo signal, along with the 5.1 Surround.

Most STB's also have standard left and right RCA stereo outputs, so if your stereo receiver lacks a digital input, you can always run those to your stereo amp. it looks like the DTV system employs these conventions from the schematics provided. ( we don't officially have DTV up here in Canada)

What I think you really mean is that you want to isolate the digital audio channels from your stab, and then stream them to your Audio receiver; that you may then choose to play those channels, regardless of what channel your sTB is tuned to?

If this is the case, I really think that this would require a second satellite receiver.

Currently, it's the nature of the beast that satellite systems require tuning of some sort; all this RF modulation really messes up old-school time-shifting and picture in picture solutions, BTW
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:34 PM on July 25, 2005

Indeed, what Matt wants is another satellite receiver. But he wants one that doesn't have to be hooked up to a TV! Maybe an older box would work, if there are models with a good old-fashioned channel number display on the front instead of being driven by an on-screen menu.

I'd kind of like something like this myself. Ideally, it would display track titles and artists as well on its own LCD, like an XM or Sirius receiver, but again I don't think there's anything like that.

I guess one could just get another DirecTV receiver, punch in the numbers from the remote to tune it, and do without a display of any kind, but it seems kind of... crude.
posted by kindall at 10:53 PM on July 25, 2005

Well there's no rule that says you have to hook it up to a tv.

I run the store's incoming Starchoice feed from the LNB to a Sound Dynamics model 985U digital switcher, then I output the component-video feed to a series of displays.

I send the Optical Digital audio output to the same switcher, but I feed the audio signal to a series of audio receivers in a seperate array. This gives me a noise-free digital audio signal throughout the store, but if I want to switch the audio and video independentlly, running AV to the displays and a different audio signal to the receivers, this does require a second receiver.

As I say, it's the nature of technology, just now. However, looking at Matt' s system, it seems that he has a two-tuner rig, what he really wants is THREE separate signals, A/V from TIVO and DTV, and then a separated audio feed o top of that.

Any multi-room/multi- source reciever provides this capability, but adding a second satellite receiver has higher fidelity, and is less costly.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:52 PM on July 25, 2005

Sorry for the typo, the link is to Audio Authority; they provide a variety of A/V switching solutions.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:57 PM on July 25, 2005