That's good to know... that's the chip I planned to use.
S/PDIF out seems to be one of the rarest features; the only player I've actually touched that had it was a broken Sony I got for free. There was another Hitachi at a local pawn shop, but I resisted buying it because of the difficulty of getting it home by bicycle. (I think it was a VIP-RX10; mine is the VIP-RX8EX.)