The Successor to AC'97: Intel High Definition Audio 428
An anonymous reader writes "A few days back Intel announced the name to
its previously dubbed 'Azalia' next-generation audio specification due out by midyear, under royalty-free license terms. The
Intel High Definition Audio solution will have increased bandwidth that allows for 192 kHz, 32-bit, multi-channel audio and uses
Dolby Pro Logic IIx technology 'which delivers the most natural, seamless and immersing 7.1 surround listening experience from any native 2-channel source'. The architecture is designed on the same cost-sensitive principles as
AC'97 and will allow for improved audio usage and stability."
It is still onboard sound (Score:5, Interesting)
OSS drivers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Progress In Consumer Audio? Yes! (Score:5, Interesting)
This new system for audio managment is great news for portable devices such as DVD+screen, next-gen PDA devices and even handheld game systems *Gameboy Advance II or PSP?*
I've long been following PC related audio solutions, all the way from Sonarc to the latest 5 and 6 channel set-ups, my normal set-up is bass speaker, left / right and one for routing system alerts etc... this kind of announcement coupled along with the latest cards supporting the new Dolby processing solutions could well make me upgrade
More to post...
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't this just a bit much? (Score:4, Interesting)
Last year, Pink Floyd released Dark Side on SACD, 24-bit audio at 48khz / 96khz, the amount of clarity over a CD, once the benchmark, was remarkable, I attended a launch party at was blown away even in a relatively acoustic poor setting
I for one welcome consumer 32-bit audio
Re:It is still onboard sound (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux Logo opportunity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Logo that you could stick on the box and "Journalists" et al could include in the normal fluffy Buzz Word compliance reviews.
That's great! .. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Initial reaction (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Initial reaction (Score:3, Interesting)
Integrated sound thus far has been a bad failure. It works well if nothing else is taxing the CPU, but otherwise, it can stutter. My nforce stutters when the network is active so no playing mp3s located on my Linux share...
Re:Isn't this just a bit much? (Score:3, Interesting)
How much of that clarity was due to the excellent sound engineers they probably hired? How much was due to the stage setup, and the excellent speakers and amplifiers they probably had? How did you compare the clarity over a CD? If they offered a comparison, how do you know the CD was a good one, and not a voluntarily dirtied version?
I for one am very wary of launch parties.
DSD Support? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Isn't this just a bit much? (Score:3, Interesting)
The extra eight bits to get to 32 bits is simply a waste. The best I can think of is steganography where you can hide data in the least significant byte and few would catch on unless the data was carefully analyzed.
memory requirements (Score:4, Interesting)
I like that this standard is very future proof, but when can we use it? Already CD sound is good enough for all but maybe 10,000 people on the planet. Most people's audio experience is probaby limited by their audio hardware, not the source sound. Hey, most people are quite happy encoding their mp3s at 128k!
Where will the high quality sound data come from? Audio CDs are still going to be 16bit, stereo, 44KHz. DVDs have compressed audio. Almost all video games use compressed audio of some sort too because we don't have enough memory yet for even CD quality sound.
I love that it is 7.1 and that it is very future proof, but other than making 7.1 standard it seems to be a standard for marketing to use as an advantage, not something consumers will ever use (by the time they can use it they'll have upgraded anyway). It seems that this beyond CD quality audio is just included because they can and we'll never see it in use this decade
Better to overbuild than underbuild I guess. But I'm not excited about this promise of higher quality audio.
7.1? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's audio ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, that is pretty high, but it will allow for a flatter frequency response in the human hearing range than what is possible with 44.1kHz or 96kHz. The reason is that the sampling process has a frequency response of a sync function: sin(x) / x. At a sampling rate of 44.1kHz, the amplitude response of the sample at the high end of the human hearing range will be a fair bit lower than at the low end of the human hearing range. This results in less amplitude (volume) range for the higher frequencies - meaning that the sound won't be quite as close to the original.
When you sample at a higher frequency, the sync function is, in effect, stretched out so that the frequencies at the high end of the human hearing range have a much better amplitude response. Translation: the sound output should, theoretically, be closer to the original at higher frequencies.
Other people have also mentioned the benefits of reduced harmonics and such. As for how much of an actual difference to the perceived sound quality this will make, I have no idea. My speakers aren't all that great, anyway.
I prefer OSS (Score:3, Interesting)
All I really need is playback from my systems, ALSA is overkill for my needs, and I hate recompiling the alsa-drivers package every time I update my kernel (on 2.4 systems).
Hopefully someone will automate or simplify ALSA for low-end use.
EAX vs Dolby Pro Logic IIx (Score:3, Interesting)
And Creative has breakout boxes, multiple inputs, surround emulation software, accelerated audio, EAX# and A3D compatible, support for most games, etc. (And DRM)
I don't see this killing off creative, but will hurt its marketshare from non-gamers.
On the flip side, Creative labs have been quite stale, only minor updates to its Audio card line. They have been adding many other products [creative.com], they even have mini-pc's, gfx, burners, mice, keyboards, etc..
-
Secondlife [secondlife.com]
Re:double-blind, controlled test, please? (Score:2, Interesting)
You are referring to the Nyquist criterion, which states that in order to guarantee you are not losing analog signal information you must sample your source at twice the frequency of the source.
A detailed explanation of the criterion and theory is here [fuse.net]
I don't believe it has anything to do with Fourier, or more likely, it can be understood very simply without any knowledge of advanced mathematics (see the link)
I both agree and disagree with you on your above points... it seems unlikely that the average person can hear about 20khz, but that doesn't necessarily mean that sampling at a higher frequency is pointless. It seems somewhat intuitive that the lower ranges would be that much more "correct". I.E. it can't hurt to sample faster, but it probably doesn't help so much.
Isn't this all for naught? (Score:3, Interesting)
The hottest selling gadget of the "music" world is the MP3 player and the seemingly hottest article of contention is the online music store. None of these are even close to being prepared for 32-bit let alone the sizes of the files necessary to create such a file.
There are a lot of comments about 6.1 and 7.1 CD's or recordings and it's all rather silly. There's no real precident of a true recording done in surround. Would you really want the lead guitar only coming from the left rear channel? The only time that I would think that it would be cool would be at a live performance, but as far as I know no one has really done anything like this.
So were looking at several GB of needless information to recreate a CD with most likely marginal musical worth, and Intel is leading the charge? I think they're looking at their dwindling x86 market share (AMD is on the upswing, not pushing my Mac-centric views out there) and trying to find a niche by using it's brand recognition. I think Dolby and DTS will have more to say as to whether this proposed solution will have any legs.
Remember most of the manufacturers and broadcasters still haven't totally agreed upon an officially acceptable HD format! DVD took too long. CD was all Sony, but took long enough for acceptance. Where is this leaving the consumer? A 32-bit 192kHz audio card in their computer, decoding 7.1 channels of information so they can play video games using samples that have been resampled from their original 16 or 8-bit formats.
I think the word is overkill and it's needless. Most people can't tell the difference and for those that can, I scoff at you. I've worked with some of the best audio engineers in the world and they wouldn't be able to hear the nuances you claim. There is "air" there in higher fidelity recordings, but most speakers can't play it back any way. Ah well, thoughts?
Peace
Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
This is so that my eight-eared mutant pet bat from outer space can finally have a full high-fidelity experience.
For regular humans, of course, CD-quality audio is already overkill.
Re:double-blind, controlled test, please? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Nyquist theory is an absolute best-case, and assumed that you sampled at the peaks.
Even with four samples per wavelength you can get pretty weird looking sample data. IIRC, EEs try to get at least eight samples per shortest wavelength to get a decent waveform representations, less than that and you can get some noticable potential frequency and phase shifting errors. On CD audio, that makes it a little over 5kHz.
Re:It is still onboard sound (Score:3, Interesting)
Does it have built in DRM ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:double-blind, controlled test, please? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, you get EXACT reproduction without having to use higher sampling rates.
That's because you mistakenly think Nyquist's theorem is Fn = 2Fmax. Nyquist's theorem is Fn > 2Fmax [efunda.com]. So what you're seeing is aliasing when Fn = 2Fmax. This causes an attenuation in the amplitude proportional to cosine of the phase difference between the sampling frequency and the signal. If you have Fn < 2Fmax then you get a "beating volume" effect as the phase difference shifts over time.
Don't get all excited. You haven't proven Nyquist wrong. You just didn't understand what Nyquist said.
Re:Dynamic range of ADC? (Score:1, Interesting)