Today at the 2003 Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) show, Microsoft Corp. and Pioneer Corp. announced a new top-of-the-line AV amplifier model that supports Microsoft® WindowsMedia® Audio 9 Professional for the delivery of multichannel surround sound. The new amplifier model, VSA-AX10Ai-N, also uses Pioneer’s Advanced Multichannel Acoustic Calibration system, whichallows sound adjustments at the same professional level as the monitoring methods of recording studios. The unit is scheduled to be available in Japan in December 2003 and in North America as thereceiver model VSX-59TXi in January 2004.
Pioneer’s VSA-AX10Ai-N can play back music files encoded with Windows Media Audio 9 Professional from a Windows®-based PC using the Sony/Philips Digital Interface (S/PDIF). The S/PDIF is an audio transfer file format interface for audio bitstreams that enables the delivery of digital audio from one device to another without the need to convert to analog; it is transferred as a digital compressed format and is decoded by the AV amplifier, therefore maintaining maximum quality. Microsoft has proposed to IEC-TC100 that Windows Media Audio 9 Professional be considered as a format for inclusion in the IEC61937 (S/PDIF) Standard.
