As usual, ASUS unveiled a slew of new products at this year's
Computex. Along with the usual assortment of motherboards and videocards, the company introduced the world's first HDMI 1.3a compliant
sound card. Designed next generation home theater PCs, the Xonar HDAV1.3 is capable of decoding Blu-ray movies and takes full advantage
of lossless digital audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
ASUS, a leading name in high quality computer components and solutions,
announces the world's first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio/video enhancement combo card - the Xonar HDAV1.3. Capable of outputting
uncompressed multichannel high definition audio from Blu-ray movies, the Xonar HDAV 1.3 also enhances video with an onboard Splendid HD
processor - providing ultimate multimedia enjoyment.
The Xonar HDAV 1.3 features Protected Audio Playback Systems (PAPS) and full
Advanced Access Content System (AACS) certification. Without both of these certifications, typical PCs will need to downsample Blu-ray
audio to DVD quality (48K/16bit). By closely working with ArcSoft's Total Media Theater, ASUS' Xonar HDAV1.3 is capable of decoding
Blu-ray movies and takes full advantage of lossless digital audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio for professional,
high-fidelity sounds at 24bit, 96-192Khz. The PCI Express based Xonar HDAV1.3 is designed from the ground up for next generation home
theater PCs (HTPC); and is equipped with the proprietary AV200 audio processor and HDMI1.3a certified Splendid HD video processor -
making it capable of delivering the highest quality 7.1 channel 192K linear pulse code modulation (LPCM) audio and high definition video
through the HDMI port.
No word yet on pricing or availability. With all this though, the Xonar HDAV1.3 probably won't
be cheap. If you'd like to read more, ASUS' entire press release can be found here.
