DFP & Sound

[neilhooper]

Just a quick question that I think I already know the answer to.

Is the most practical way of getting sound in and out of Cortex to use a DFP?

[Karam]

Depends what you mean. You can of course hear spoken messages from the PC speakers (if you just have left/right then one channel can go to PCU and other to speaker). If you want to output audio from the bus then you could in principle simply stick an amplifier onto it but that would mean you'd hear everything that goes onto it. Also, because its an analogue bus even when quiescent you'll likely hear noises whereas something like the DFP has switcheable amps which are network controlled. Getting audio onto the bus is a bit tricky because if you simply keep an audio output connected to the bus it means that other devices trying to output audio to the bus will have their audio levels reduced and likely also distorted. Again we have controllable switches which co-ordinate access, hence a handsfree conference between pretty much any number of DFPs is possible.

We have had a long term plan to introduce an intercom only module and perhaps a derivative which allows user plug in of audio I/O but these are still on the pending stack

[neilhooper]

I think an Intercom only module would be a very useful addition to the range. How likely is it to come to fruition ?