Surround sound mixing in Soundtrack Pro 2 scores high
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âOne of the best new features in all of the Final Cut Studio family,â maintains Kevin McAuliffe (CreativeMac) âis the addition of surround sound mixing to Soundtrack Pro 2.â To illustrate, McAuliffe takes readers step-by-step through a simple âsurroundâ tutorial. âThis great and easy to use feature in STP2,â he concludes, âlets you mix your entire show in surround, export your mix as surround, and then take your submix, switch it back to â1,2â, and you now have a downmix to stereo from 5.1 for a stereo version of your show.â
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Development of native Linux audio plugins and softsynths may not be so relentlessly rapid as it is in the Windows and Mac sound software worlds, but new things do appear. This week I profile a cool new (well, relatively new) Linux softsynth, William Weston's Phase Harmonic Advanced Synthesis EXperiment, also known as Phasex.
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Underpromising in order to overdeliver can't make up for sluggish operating results.
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Add-on to bring PSP-like movie, music playback to console
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Kossâs new Cobalt headphones manage to deliver wireless audio without looking like a prop from âStar Trek.â
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A test of 10 pairs of noise-canceling headphones reveals some unexpected stars.
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Backers of the Blu-ray high definition DVD system receive a twin boost in their format war with HD DVD.
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Blu-ray triumphs in the hi-def war. Did you choose wisely?
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Panasonic's RP-HTX7 Monitor Headphones have a prosaic name and a funky look of classic ÃÂ70s ÃÂcans.ÃÂ
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Dual-layer disc to smooth hi-def format adoption
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By Dick Tan  BASED on its successful DAC-1 two-channel 24-bit/192-kilohertz audio digial-to-analogue connector, Benchmark Media Systems has come up with the DAC-1 USB, which offers new benchmarks such as Advanced USB Audio, Ultrablock and HPA2.
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(InfoWorld) - If you're thinking of using your PC to play high-definition Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD movies then you might have to think again. While computer drives for both blue-laser formats make PC playback a possibility, you'll need to have a high-performance PC if you want to watch the majority of movies. Even then, some movies might not playback smoothly, manufacturers of multimedia playback and burning software suites said at this week's Ceatec show in Chiba, Japan. HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc allow the use of three compression systems: MPEG2, VC1 or MPEG4 AVC. To date, most movies have used the latter but that's the hardest for PCs to process, said Noritaka Baba, a manager at CyberLink. The company produces the Power DVD software and other similar multimedia suites. CyberLink recommends that consumers have at least an Intel 3.2GHz Pentium D processor, which is one of the fastest processors that Intel makes. For laptop PCs, the company recommends at least a 2GHz Core Duo T2500 processor for playback of MPEG4 AVC encoded content. Discs using the VC1 codec can be played back with slightly less powerful hardware and MPEG2 encoded video requires the least amount of processing power, he said. In a demonstration on the HD DVD booth at Ceatec, a computer was playing the movie "Shinobi." Encoded in MPEG4 AVC at about 20Mbps it required about 70 percent of the power of the 3.2GHz Pentium D processor for playback, said Kazutaka Aiso, manager of the OEM sales group at Nero's Japan unit. He said that of all the software on the market there is one title that won't playback smoothly on a PC. The title, "Yozakura," was the first HD DVD movie on the market in Japan and consists of high-definition images of Japanese cherry blossoms. The video on the disc averages around 30Mbps and that's just too much for today's PCs to handle, he said. CyberLink and InterVideo, which produces the WinDVD software, also reported problems playing that title. The problems only apply to playback of high-definition video because processing of the video needs to be done in real time. Consumers can get away with much less powerful hardware if they want to burn HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc media -- it will simply take longer to complete the task as the processor's computing power drops, said Baba. The advice of the software makers is borne out by the first computers to feature drives for the new disc formats. Sony's Vaio L computer, which was launched earlier this week at the show and includes a Blu-ray Disc drive, runs on Core 2 Duo processors running at between 1.73GHz and 2.16GHz.Â NEC's Valuestar X, which is also based on a Blu-ray Disc drive, runs a 3.4GHz Pentium D processor. AndÂ Toshiba's HD DVD-based Qosmio G30Â has a 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo processor inside.
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It's a bit disorienting: slip on a set of headphones, turn up the volume and, while you move about the room, the music stays put &#151; as if coming out of five speakers stuck on a wall.
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I cannot play a DVD on my computerâs Windows XP operating system. I see the picture, but there is no sound. What is keeping my movies silent?
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Calling GarageBand â08 âpretty impressive,â Asher Fulero (Remix) confesses that multitake recording is âone of my favorite new featuresâ and calls the new VIsual EQ a âpro-level nugget.â  âWith spectral analysis overlaid atop the EQ curve, you can drag the four curve points and see the results on the signal in real time. Support for 24-bit recording, playback and output (24-bit-capable audio interface required) lends even more of a professional edge, as do the new mastering options that offer a host of preset master-track effect chains.â
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No, really, they do. Logitech's Z-5500 speaker set cranks up the sound for computers, game consoles and home theaters. By Leander Kahney.
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That crashing noise you hear emanating from your local multiplex is the sound of Pixar trying something different -- and succeeding magnificently.