Free Webcast: 20 Trends in Home Automation
Overheard at LG’s 84-in 4K Launch Party
Frank Lloyd Wright Meets Klingon Empire in High-Tech Home
CCTV Security Reaches the Cloud
Florida 'White House' Features Fully Integrated System
Print
Email
Comments (6)
Share
S1Digital’s P500 May be First Media Center to Output Lossless Blu-ray Audio
Implementing Asus's Xonar HDAV1.3, the top-of-the-line Media Center supports PAPS and AACS content protection for 24bit, 96-192kHz Blu-ray audio.
S1Digital, P500 Media Center with Blu-ray player, up to four Cablecard tuners, RAID 5 (2 TB usable), RS-232 and Soundpack option featuring Asus’s Xonar HDAV1.3 A/V card
S1Digital's new P500 Media Center was "custom designed by us from the ground up for the CI [custom installer] market," says president Paul Heitlinger.
The unit – part of S1Digitals' ProLine Series -- is stripped of junkware, optimized for whole-house entertainment, and may be the first Media Center to implement Asus's highly anticipated Xonar HDAV1.3 sound and video card.
"Apparently, we’re going to be the first Media Center company to offer it [Xonar HDAV1.3] with a 10-foot user interface," says Heitlinger. "We’re working with [Asus partner] Arcsoft on getting it completed."
ASUS claims the HDAV1.3 is the world's first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio/video enhancement combo card. While it apparently "enhances video with an onboard Splendid HD processor," the card's real claim to fame is on the audio side.
The HDAV1.3 supports Blu-ray's two big content protection schemes -- Protected Audio Playback System (PAPS) and Advanced Access Content System (AACS) -- so it can outputuncompressed lossless Blu-ray audio in all its splendor. (UPDATE: see note below)
Learn more about Media Center at Media Center University, exclusively at the Electronic House Expo, March 11-14, 2009 in Orlando, Fla. Check out the complete MCU agenda here. Media Center University is sponsored by the Media Center Integrator Alliance (MCIA).Without both of these certifications, PCs typically must down-sample Blu-ray audio to DVD quality (48K/16bit).
S1Digital's implementation of the HDAV1.3 is called Soundpack, offered as an option for the P500.
Soundpack enables bitstreaming the latest HD audio formats on Blu-ray discs. "This means the P500 can take full advantage of lossless digital audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio," Heitlinger says.
The P500 is available with up to four CableCard HDTV tuners plus an unencrypted QAM/ATSC tuner, Blu-ray player with Profile 2.0 features, movie archiving capabilities, and three terabytes (2TB usable) of internal RAID-5 storage. It supports HDMI (with 5.1 channel audio), DVI and component video outputs as well as digital optical and 7.1 channel analog audio.
The machine is powered by Intel’s latest Core 2 Duo CPU, P45 motherboard and runs Vista Ultimate.
RS-232 control is available via a built in serial port – great for integrating with those home-control systems that still communicate the old-fashioned way.
All this … and it looks good too.
"The P500 was designed from the ground up to look great out on display," Heitlinger says.
He adds that the unit is "primarily designed for the living room," but it does support up to three zones of streaming audio and video via Media Center Extenders or additional Media Centers.
Do you want the P500 but you'd rather wait for Windows 7? Not to worry, S1Digital is offering free upgrades for its XP Media Centers purchased between Jan. 20 and March 31, 2009.
The S1Digital P500 starts at around $5,999.
NOTE: Derek Flickinger (surprise, surprise) suggested that the technology in question delivers lossless audio, but not uncompressed audio. S1Digital's Paul Heitlinger confirms. The files may be compressed but all of the original data in the recording remains.
Asus Xonar HDAV1.3
The unit – part of S1Digitals' ProLine Series -- is stripped of junkware, optimized for whole-house entertainment, and may be the first Media Center to implement Asus's highly anticipated Xonar HDAV1.3 sound and video card.
"Apparently, we’re going to be the first Media Center company to offer it [Xonar HDAV1.3] with a 10-foot user interface," says Heitlinger. "We’re working with [Asus partner] Arcsoft on getting it completed."
ASUS claims the HDAV1.3 is the world's first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio/video enhancement combo card. While it apparently "enhances video with an onboard Splendid HD processor," the card's real claim to fame is on the audio side.
The HDAV1.3 supports Blu-ray's two big content protection schemes -- Protected Audio Playback System (PAPS) and Advanced Access Content System (AACS) -- so it can output
Learn more about Media Center at Media Center University, exclusively at the Electronic House Expo, March 11-14, 2009 in Orlando, Fla. Check out the complete MCU agenda here. Media Center University is sponsored by the Media Center Integrator Alliance (MCIA).
S1Digital's implementation of the HDAV1.3 is called Soundpack, offered as an option for the P500.
Soundpack enables bitstreaming the latest HD audio formats on Blu-ray discs. "This means the P500 can take full advantage of lossless digital audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio," Heitlinger says.
The P500 is available with up to four CableCard HDTV tuners plus an unencrypted QAM/ATSC tuner, Blu-ray player with Profile 2.0 features, movie archiving capabilities, and three terabytes (2TB usable) of internal RAID-5 storage. It supports HDMI (with 5.1 channel audio), DVI and component video outputs as well as digital optical and 7.1 channel analog audio.
The machine is powered by Intel’s latest Core 2 Duo CPU, P45 motherboard and runs Vista Ultimate.
RS-232 control is available via a built in serial port – great for integrating with those home-control systems that still communicate the old-fashioned way.
All this … and it looks good too.
"The P500 was designed from the ground up to look great out on display," Heitlinger says.
He adds that the unit is "primarily designed for the living room," but it does support up to three zones of streaming audio and video via Media Center Extenders or additional Media Centers.
Do you want the P500 but you'd rather wait for Windows 7? Not to worry, S1Digital is offering free upgrades for its XP Media Centers purchased between Jan. 20 and March 31, 2009.
The S1Digital P500 starts at around $5,999.
NOTE: Derek Flickinger (surprise, surprise) suggested that the technology in question delivers lossless audio, but not uncompressed audio. S1Digital's Paul Heitlinger confirms. The files may be compressed but all of the original data in the recording remains.
Asus Xonar HDAV1.3
Subscribe to the CE Pro Newsletter
Read more Media Center stories
Boxee TV Features Dual Tuner, Unlimited Cloud-Based DVRHow Industry Consultant Cuts Cord with Media Center, Good Antenna, HD Tuner
Extra Vegetables Delivers Inexpensive Movie Servers for Control4
How Frank Restored my Faith in Time Warner Cable
Ode to Media Center and Ceton
More in Media Center
About the Author
Julie Jacobson is co-founder of EH Publishing and currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro, mostly in the areas of home automation, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration. She majored in Economics at the University of Michigan, earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has never taken a journalism class in her life. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player with the scars to prove it. Follow her on Twitter @juliejacobson.
6 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
However, it is not Media Center based.
Too bad S1 blatantly ripped off Parasound’s distinctive Halo design. It raises big questions about anything which S1 claims.
The only reason they may be first is because they are willing to ship with known bugs on a card that is not ready for primetime.
They’re not shipping that piece of it yet ... waiting til all is well with it.
For Blu-ray movies, I don’t think there are any issues. I know it doesn’t playback HD audio formats on HD-DVDs (which is a dead format anyway) and the 24p issue is resolved, so what other issues are there?
Page 1 of 1 comment pages
Too late Axonix already announced this at ISE last week. It is called the ProPlayer. It already supports the ASUS card and in a 2U Chassis.