Hi there guys.
Just found this in my travels... sounds interesting.
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Sony's ATRAC has had its day
Exclusive technical report
By Donald B Levie
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 1, 2000, 2:00 a.m. UT
ATRAC (an acronym derived from "acoustic transformation adaptation
coding"), the audio compression technology which Sony developed for use in
its popular Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) multichannel theater sound
format, an audio option available on recent blockbuster successes from The
Matrix to American Beauty, and also used in the struggling consumer
MiniDisc music format, has been replaced by two new technologies to be
announced by Sony in press conferences in Tokyo this month.
The encodings called MSYDE (pronounced "em-side"), an acronym arising from
"multidimensional synergistic decoder/encoder", and BSYDE (pronounced
"bee-side"), arising from "binaural synergistic decoder/encoder", will be
largely invisible to consumers, who will know them instead by the trademark
brands SMDS and Sony Multidimensional Digital Sound.
SMDS is intended to be a successor to SDDS. SMDS will be the fourth major
sound format to appear on DVD Video, and it hoped to compete with the
languishing DTS (Digital Theater Systems) format as the premium surround
format for DVD enthusiasts. SMDS DVD is to be supported in all future
players from Sony, Philips, Toshiba and Pioneer. Matsushita is expected to
follow shortly. Decoders are presently limited to offerings from Sony, but
licenses have been granted to seven companies in Japan alone, with many
more license holders internationally.
Sony will use the companion BSYDE technology in its forthcoming revamp of
the MiniDisc line, which will update the nearly decade old technology to
take advantage of the new densities and variable data transfer bitrates
possible in DVD-like media. Sony seem to be hoping the replacement,
codenamed MDV-A, will leverage loyalty of MiniDisc consumers while and at
the same time grab market share which would otherwise belong to the highly
anticipated ultra-hifi DVD Audio format. It is expected that even consumer
level MDV-A devices will be able to modify bitrates and sampling frequency
on the fly, trading off maximum possible bandwidth utilization and audio
quality as needed, giving MDV-A users flexibilities previously only
afforded to those using PCs to encode formats like MP3.
The advantages of the new formats over their predecessor, ATRAC, are not
well known, and Sony are keeping tight-lipped in the lead up to their
formal announcement. However, insiders suggest that Sony is trying to
preempt the next revolution in surround sound, by creating a truly three
dimensional sound field with a high level of directionality and offering a
capacity for vertical panning. Verical panning is not yet possible in
present surround schemes, including Dolby Digital and DTS. Initial
decoders, however, will be limited to rendering MSYDE for the 5.1 and 6.1
channel setups common in most theaters.
It is also expected that, given the synergies between Sony's hardware and
content divisions, BSYDE and MSYDE will facilitate high-level anti-piracy
technologies beyond anything yet realised. Expected are military-grade
encryption schemes, embedded copyright information and inaudible watermarks
that survive conversion into analogue form, allowing copies made from
protected media to be traced.
Copyright 2000 CNET Inc.
http://cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-1659726-0.html
--
Archer
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/6413/
End.
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