Trinnov Audio has announced two free enhancement updates to its Altitude AV processor platform that will see the Altitude16 and Altitude32 become upgradeable to four additional channels and certified to render IMAX Enhanced content playback.
The software release will add the two additional feature to all Altitude processors installed since 2015 across the globe. The additional four output channels to Altitude16 and Altitude32, along with IMAX Enhanced support, will become available by mid-October through a free software download.
“Our implementation of immersive sound codecs is unrivalled,” said Arnaud Laborie, Trinnov Audio’s co-founder and CEO. “We have always been committed to high spatial resolution and we are now taking the extra step to enable this benefit across a higher number of home theatre installations by adding four extra discrete and acoustically optimised outputs. Among countless new possibilities, this update now allows Altitude16 owners to support the very popular 9.4.6 speaker layout and maximise low frequency and 3D sound performance with our fully integrated calibration suite.”
The addition of four output channels means that the Altitude16 now supports 20 discrete optimised channels, however this was challenging to do. One of Trinnov’s engineers suggested converting the Toslink output of the Altitude16 to ADAT, which is a well-known transport protocol in the professional and production music industry that allows the carriage of four channels at up to 96kHz. This approach allows Altitude owners to have four extra outputs with the addition of a simple external D/A converter.
On Altitude32 models, these extra outputs will be available via the built-in AES/EBU outputs.
“For both Altitude models, our customers will need to source a Digital / Analogue converter,” added Laborie. “By enabling four extra outputs free of charge through a simple software update, this upgrade not only opens new perspectives but also enables dramatic audio improvements within a lower budget.”
The other major feature update is the availability of IMAX Enhanced on the Altitude platform after months of certification testing. The news comes just as new announcements are expected from IMAX that will result in a much larger amount of IMAX Enhanced native content becoming available.
IMAX Enhanced content playback relies on DTS:X technology, taking full advantage of Trinnov’s unique implementation of the Neural:X upmixer, which offers the maximum number of discrete speaker channels available in the DTS:X Pro specification.