1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,880 Of all the technologies we have right now that suggest we really are living in the future, 2 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:11,040 perhaps nothing sounds more futuristic than the fact that we can transmit data with laser light. 3 00:00:11,040 --> 00:00:16,000 Indeed, many of the highest capacity cables that form the backbone of the internet use 4 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:21,200 fiber optics, and fiber to the home connections that deliver very high speeds have become more 5 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:26,800 popular in recent years. But did you know that one optical technology that used to be pretty 6 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:33,120 common place in home audio is now getting replaced by good old-fashioned copper? I'm not talking about 7 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:38,640 CDs, which you can learn more about up here. I'm actually referring to the Toshiba link, 8 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:43,680 or TOS link connector. If you're not sure what that is, there's actually a good chance you have 9 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:49,680 one on the back of your desktop PC. It's a square-ish looking connector that's lit up with red light. 10 00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:55,680 They were also extremely common not so long ago when DVD players ruled the world. You see, 11 00:00:55,680 --> 00:01:02,080 although TOS link was originally developed in the 1980s to connect CD players to other audio equipment, 12 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:08,160 it made its way into DVD players and computers as an easy way to deliver digital audio over just 13 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:14,560 one cable. So if you had a 5.1 surround setup, for example, you could use a single TOS link cable 14 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:22,080 to send a digital signal to a receiver that would then decode it, rather than one RCA cable for every 15 00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:27,360 channel, which would suck. And it did. And another cool thing about TOS link was that because it 16 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:32,960 used light, it wouldn't suffer from interference from other nearby electronics. So what we had was 17 00:01:32,960 --> 00:01:40,400 a convenient, clean, futuristic pathway for high-resolution audio. So why is it going away? Well, 18 00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:46,000 one reason is that it's actually not very good at carrying signals over any kind of significant 19 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,760 distance, which is counterintuitive because those fiber optic cables on the ocean floor use light 20 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:57,360 to transmit data and they work for huge amounts of information being sent thousands of miles away. 21 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:04,480 So what gives? The answer is in how the cables are physically constructed. Unlike higher spec, 22 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:10,000 high bandwidth fiber optic cables, optical TOS link cables are often built with how you say 23 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:15,920 cheap plastic as a transmission medium inside, contributing to the light attenuating or losing 24 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:21,040 its strength as it travels down the pipe. This means that not only do TOS link cables have a 25 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:27,120 maximum length of around 10 meters or 33 feet, but also that they're bandwidth limited compared 26 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:33,360 to other solutions. The latest version of TOS link has data rates up to 125 megabits per second, 27 00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:38,480 which is certainly fast enough for high res audio and even theoretically for high def video at the 28 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:45,680 same time. But the release of HDMI in the early 2000s created a very sticky situation for TOS link. 29 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:52,240 Not only did HDMI offer a relatively easy one cable solution for both audio and video, 30 00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:58,080 even the very earliest versions of HDMI were a lot faster than TOS link, meaning they were not 31 00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:02,880 only good for consumer applications, but also professional settings where users needed to work 32 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:08,880 with uncompressed video and audio. Despite the fact that HDMI just uses copper cables without any 33 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:14,080 fancy optical data transfer, their construction meant that they could carry faster signals over 34 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:19,840 longer distances. And TOS link cables also had a bad habit of breaking if you bent them too much, 35 00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:25,600 due to their more rigid cores, something that HDMI cables could withstand a lot more easily. 36 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:32,000 So as time went on, the industry concentrated on expanding the HDMI spec to support more and more 37 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:39,120 audio standards, such as Lossus DTS Master Audio, Dolby True HD and the newer DTSX and Dolby Atmos, 38 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:45,360 which you can learn a lot more about up here. TOS link on the other hand was more or less left 39 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:49,840 to languish. Although it certainly would have been possible to update the spec and make it 40 00:03:49,840 --> 00:03:55,760 compatible with newer fancier formats, no one ever really got around with it, because HDMI largely 41 00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:01,680 made it irrelevant. But that doesn't mean that TOS link is totally useless today. It still works 42 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:07,920 well as a simple hookup for a compressed digital audio like bog standard Dolby digital or DTS 5.1, 43 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:13,040 and you'll still find it on many soundbars out there as an easy way to connect to a display, 44 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:18,160 even if there's no HDMI out available. Even some small devices use mini TOS link, 45 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:22,240 which can be combined with a standard 3.5 millimeter jack in order to save space. 46 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:26,240 And if you're using a vintage audio receiver, maybe that doesn't have HDMI, 47 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:32,320 so you gotta get to your TV somehow. So it's not quite dead yet, okay? Just don't tell those 48 00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:37,520 coroners from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A reference from before you were born probably.