Editing Introduction to a Self Managed Life: a 13 hour & 28 minute presentation by FUTO software (section)

==== Audio &amp; Video output options ====

The Asustor Flashstor does '''4k60 out of its HDMI port''' just fine. Some cheap no-name fly by night minipc companies use old HDMI standards for their ports &amp; get stuck at 4k30.

For high-quality audio, having an '''optical SPDIF''' output is important. as mentioned before, this allows the digital-to-analog conversion to be handled by dedicated audio equipment rather than your multipurpose PC, which sidesteps the noisy nonsense you get when you try encoding video or doing CPU intensive things with headphones plugged in. You may not notice this while your headphones are turned up as you’re engaged playing an exciting game, but quiet passages of movies get ruined by this very easily. The Asustor flashstor includes an optical SPDIF audio output jack, allowing you to connect directly to most modern home theater receivers.

* '''Benefit''': Avoids the need for additional USB audio interfaces.
* '''Setup''': Use a simple $5 optical cable from Walmart to connect to your stereo system.

It has '''optical audio output'''. This allows you to plug the machine into a '''stereo receiver'''’s optical audio input, a discrete '''digital to analog converter''', or an '''integrated amp'''’s optical audio input for clean sound output.

HDMI carries audio, but if you’re like me &amp; have a separate audio setup from your television, you’d have to get an HDMI audio/video splitter to get HDMI video to your TV and SPDIF digital audio to your stereo receiver that goes to your speakers. Some TVs can pass through the audio digitally to your stereo receiver, some don’t, but even if they do this is an added pain in the ass. Having optical audio out makes this easier.

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