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August 14, 2004

In Absentia DVD-A

cover

We were over at Mark and Robin's today and we listened to the Porcupine Tree In Absentia DVD-Audio 5.1 Surround Edition. I sat for the listening until around the end of "Gravity Eyelids". The first thing I noticed about the recording was how clean it sounded. Then I was wowed by how overt the surround mix was; this was a good thing. I'm definitely wanting to get at least a computer-based surround setup going to enjoy it at my own place. The music was well-received by everyone present and the entire album (plus the three bonus tracks) was allowed to play through.

Congrats to PT and DTS on a great surround version of IA; it made for a great introduction to surround DVD-Audio.

Posted by Alex Harden on August 14, 2004 9:05 PM |

Comments

I've heard of DVD-Audio but haven't had the chance to actually "listen" to it. My Apple G5 came with an optical audio out plug that I've wanted to put to use. There aren't many optical audio speaker systems out there though. I think it's a toss between the Logitech Z680 (which we carry here at work) and Klipsch ProMedia GMX D-5.1 Speakers.

Posted by: Jonathan | August 17, 2004 3:04 PM

Yeah, I'll have to look at one of those types of systems if I decided to go with a computer-based setup. I'll probably get a card like the M-Audio Revolution that will actually let me do the 6 analog outputs required for 5.1 DVD-Audio.

Note that your G5's optical digital out supports PCM stereo and possibly AC3 (Dolby Digital) and/or DTS based on your software. DVD-Audio is an uncompressed format and is played directly by your DVD-Audio player. There may be DVD-Audio-over-optical solutions, but I haven't seen any yet because of the high data rates required.

Posted by: aharden | August 17, 2004 4:19 PM

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