Patent ID: 7702005

Claim:
A method for transmitting audio data of a plurality of audio sources through a single Sony/Philips Digital Interface (SPDIF) link, comprising: sequencing and multiplexing the audio data of the plurality of audio sources to pack the audio data of the plurality of audio sources into a plurality of frames of a block, wherein each frame comprises two sub-frames; performing bi-phase mark encoding on the audio data in the frames; appending preambles Z, X, and Y of the Audio Engineering Society-3 (AES3)/SPDIF stream format to the frames according to the number of audio sources in a first mode, or appending preambles Z, X, and Y of the AES3/SPDIF stream format and a specific preamble differing from preambles Z, X, and Y to the frames according to the number of audio sources in a second mode; and outputting the frames carrying the audio data into the single SPDIF link with a frame rate greater than an audio sampling frequency of one of the audio sources; wherein in a situation where the step of appending preambles Z, X, and Y of the AES3/SPDIF stream format to the frames is executed, the step of appending preambles Z, X, and Y of the AES3/SPDIF stream format to the frames further comprises: appending preamble Y to the first sub-frame of at least one frame of the frames according to the number of audio sources or appending preamble X to the second sub-frame of at least one frame of the frames according to the number of audio sources; and appending one of preambles Z, X, and Y to one of the other sub-frames according to the AES3/SPDIF stream format; or wherein in a situation where the step of appending preambles Z, X, and Y of the AES3/SPDIF stream format and the specific preamble differing from preambles Z, X, and Y to the frames is executed, the step of appending preambles Z, X, and Y of the AES3/SPDIF stream format and the specific preamble differing from preambles Z, X, and Y to the frames further comprises: appending the specific preamble to at least one sub-frame of at least one frame of the frames according to the number of audio sources; and appending one of preambles Z, X, and Y to one of the other sub-frames according to the AES3/SPDIF stream format.