ASUS first with Dolby TrueHD bitstream audio cards
updated 03:20 pm EST, Fri January 2, 2009
ASUS Dolby TrueHD cards
Taiwan's ASUS on Wednesday announced it will soon release its Xonar HDAV1.3-series of sound cards that are the first in the industry to offer TrueHD audio bitstream support for HTPCs. The lossless digital compression rate of 24-bit/192KHz audio is delivered to AV receivers thanks to the use a specially designed C-Media AV200 audio processor and ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre software. HTPC users can now enjoy DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus audio formats usually found on today's Blu-ray movies discs.
ASUS points out the Xonar HDAV 1.3 cards support the majority of the video graphics cards out on the market, letting users connect both to their A/V receivers with a single HDMI cable. This is made possible by the cards' Protected Audio Playback System (PAPS), another first for PC audio cards, and Advanced Access Content System (AACS) certification.
ASUS has not given any indications of a release date or pricing information for its sound card.
