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Aperion Audio Intimus 4T Summit touts uncompressed surround sound without the cords
See that little box next to those huge speakers? That's Aperion Audio's ticket to what's reportedly a no-compromise approach to wireless home theater. The Intimus 4T Summit Wireless is billed as the only system of its kind to transmit uncompressed 24-bit, 96KHz audio to its 5.1- or 7.1-channel speaker array without having to string wires across the living room. There's no interference and no more than 5ms of lag, even when that wunderkind box is processing Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio. Aperion is still touting an easy setup that can create a sweet spot in awkward spaces. If you like the idea, the only real catches are the $2,999 and $3,499 prices for the respective 5.1- and 7.1-channel systems -- although the outlay may be worthwhile to cut the clutter without sacrificing the finer details of Blu-ray movie soundtracks.
XBMC audio engine gets big rewrite, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio hit your media hub
Fans of XBMC who've wanted their HTPCs to replace the higher-end components of a home theater setup, like Blu-ray players and higher-end receivers, are having their wishes fulfilled through a completely reworked sound system. AudioEngine, as it's called, can processevery stage of audio encoding and decoding, even with 7.1-channel formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. As the code uses more precise floating point math, the improvements can bolster heavily compressed audio and allow for upmixing from stereo to a native surround format. Sound should sync more closely to video and avoid any jarring interruptions from system sounds, too. The AudioEngine update is still limited to experimental nightly builds of XBMC, so don't be surprised if something goes awry, but it's slated as part of the main development track and should be a boon for just about any XBMC media junkie before long.
Xbox 360 Elite uses HDMI 1.2; no support for Dolby TrueHD
For audiophiles, this may hurt. For everyone else, this may induce yawning.The Xbox 360 Elite will ship with HDMI version 1.2, as opposed to the latest version 1.3. What do you lose with such a monstrous degradation? HDMI 1.3 adds support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams; this can be accomplished in HDMI 1.2 if the player can decode these streams into uncompressed audio, but unfortunately neither the Xbox 360 nor HD DVD add-on support it. (For reference, the PlayStation 3 was the first device to use HDMI 1.3.)Other differences include audio / lip sync technology, a greater transfer speed -- which would matter if you were outputting above 1080p, but that is currently the maximum resolution -- and Deep Color, which again will be more distinguishable in future resolutions.For now, the only major disparity will be the audio. Does this affect anyone's decision to purchase the Elite?[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
