SPDIF Out

[patkim]

Most motherboards today have SPDIF Out header.
I am not very clear what exactly is this connection and how & when it is used..

Thanks,

[Gecko]

S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a standard audio transfer file format.
It is usually found on digital audio equipment such as a DAT (Digital Audio Tape) machine or audio processing device.

It allows the transfer of audio from one file to another without the conversion to and from an analog format, which could degrade the signal quality.