Chapter 9 Configuring the DMA

9.10.1 Audio Formats

This section provides background information on audio formats mentioned in the previous section.

9.10.1.1 S/PDIF

S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format) is also IEC 958 type II, part of IEC-60958. S/ PDIF is a collection of low-level protocol and hardware specifications for carrying digital audio signals between devices and stereo equipment.

9.10.1.2 AAC

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is a standardized digital audio compression method. Sony, AT&T, Dolby, Nokia, Fraunhofer (FhG) and other companies cooperated to develop AAC to provide improved performance compared to MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3). Various products including Apple’s iTunes and iPod, the Sony PlayStation 3 and many cell phones support AAC playback. AAC has been promoted as the successor to MP3 although at the time of writing, MP3 still remains popular. AAC is also known as MPEG-4 AAC because it is included in the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) MPEG-4 standard.

9.10.1.3 Dolby Digital

Dolby Digital is one of several audio compression technologies (codecs) produced by Dolby Laboratories.

Dolby Digital (also called AC-3) is the most common version. It contains up to six discrete channels of sound. Five channels for normal-range speakers (right front, center, left front, right rear and left rear) and one channel for the subwoofer. This is often abbreviated as 5.1. The Dolby Digital format also supports mono and stereo usage.

Dolby Digital is also known as DD, DD 5.1, Dolby Surround AC-3 Digital, Dolby Stereo Digital, Dolby SR-Digital, SR-D, Adaptive Transform Coder 3, AC-3, Audio Codec 3, Advanced Codec 3, Acoustic Coder 3, ATSC A/52, and ATSC A/52 Rev. B.

9.10.1.4 WMA

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is Microsoft’s proprietary audio compression format. Although WMA has not been nearly as popular as MP3, WMA Pro is part of Microsoft's Windows Media framework and is positioned as a competitor to AAC. Many consumer devices and media players support the playback of WMA files.

9.10.1.5 LPCM

LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation is a method for digitally encoding audio information. In LPCM an audio waveform is represented by a sequence of amplitude values recorded at a sequence of times. LPCM most commonly supports two audio channels (stereo).

9.11 Language Settings

Use this menu to select the language that the DMA menus use.

Select OPTION > Language Settings to open the following menu.

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DMA-1000 Series User’s Guide