Information Madness

ASUS XONAR HDAV 1.3:

ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated (ASUS), a Taiwanese company manufacturing motherboards, graphic cards, notebook computers, mobile phones and other computer components recently launched its latest audio card XONAR HDAV 1.3 which features HDMI ports. It has been put on the ASUS official website as well.

It has been designed with more quality components and a lossless design with its Hyper Grounding circuitry Burr-Brown DA convertors. Besides it can mix in an audio stream with full 96 or 192 KHz Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio support to the HDMI signal. There is an additive HD technology to the Xonar HDAV 1.3. This card also features Protected Audio Playback Systems (PAPS) and full advanced Access Content System (AACS) certification. With these certifications Xonar HDAV 1.3 supports Blue-Ray technology too where it can decode full Blue-Ray movies. Apart from it, capability to enhance the image quality by increasing the color performance and thus offering clearer and crisper image without any flickering is also embedded in it. Their splendid HD technologies can also up-sample lower resolution content and providing more clarity.

A deluxe version of this audio card is also available which supports OPAMs (swappable) on HDAV H6 extension board with full 7.1 channel analog output. The swappable feature helps to further enhance the card’s analog output. ASUS has claimed to have used a grounding called HyperGrounding to achieve an S/N (signal to noise) ratio of 120dB while all the other cards always focus on delivering a high SNR for the front speakers.

The PCI Express based Xonar HDAV1.3 is designed from the ground up for next generation home theater PCs (HTPC); and is equipped with the proprietary AV200 audio processor and HDMI1.3a certified Splendid HD video processor - making it capable of delivering the highest quality 7.1 channel 192K linear pulse code modulation (LPCM) audio and high definition video through the HDMI port.

It also comes with the well renowned DS3D GX 2.0, which revives EAX 5.0 and 3D gaming audio in Vista. DS3D GX 2.0 automatically enables the latest EAX and DirectSound HW after installation, with no additional driver patches, game modifications, or OpenAL required. DS3D GX2.0 also extends MMOG EAX to online chat, allowing you to place your voice into the game's environment.