Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

Auzentech is now shipping the Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 soundcard, which should be available at retail stores August 28. This marks the first time Creative has permitted a third-party soundcard vendor to use the Creative X-FI chipset in its own soundcard design.

So why is this a big deal? Computer audio, especially for media centers, has been stagnant. Auzentech is known for developing great cards for media centers. Creative’s X-Fi is a great card for gaming. Auzen X-Fi Prelude should be a good combination of both feature sets. Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive will be supported with future driver updates expected by the end of the year or early 2008.

Dolby Digital Live converts any audio signal into a Dolby Digital bitstream for transport and playback through a home theater system. With it, your PC or game console can be hooked up to your Dolby Digital-equipped audio/video receiver or digital speaker system via a single digital connection, eliminating the confusion of multiple cables.

While a step in the right direction, the Auzen is not the HDMI solution everyone has been hoping for their media centers. For the time being, it should be the hardware of choice for media centers.