ATRAC-X?

[navsimpson]

While trolling through the internets, I came across an oddly named document called the "ATRAC Family Payload Draft". I didn't really get much of it - it was far too technical and Sony specific - but there is a mention of a format called ATRAC-X that, among other things, seems to be multi-channel (there is mention of centre-channel, surrounds etc) and has a file format of atx, rather than omg/a or aa3.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Is this PS3 related or something else?

-Nav

Edited October 18, 2006 by navsimpson

[MDX-400]

It might be but I haven't heard anything about new ATRAC dev. for the PS3. (Still could be a possibility).

How old was the document you found?

If it's older, ATRAC-X might be the ATRAC used in SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) which is a multi-channel movie soundtrack format (such as Dolby Digital) used exclusively in theatres. That's been around since like 1994 or something...

If it's newer than that though, it might just be something new perhaps to compete with newer versions of DD/DTS for again for theatre applications, or something entirely different (like the PS3 as you mentioned).

[navsimpson]

Whoops! Good call dude - the document was from 2002/3, which means the 'x' probably just stood for '3plus', as in ATRAC3plus. I wasn't aware that a form of ATRAC was used for SDDS - that's pretty interesting.

Since it seems that Sony isn't giving up on ATRAC at all - its inclusion in the PS3 pretty much guarantees it will be around for a while - I wonder if they'll update it, a la LAME or WMA. To my ears, ATRAC's sound quality at everything except the highest setting (352kbs, high) doesn't sound as good as LAME - so why doesn't Sony work harder to improve something they invented years ago?

-Nav