The sound department:
Hercules is going to introduce the Muse 5.1, the Game Theatre XP6.1, the Forissimo III 7.1, and last but not least the Digifire 7.1, which was under NDA till today into the soundcard market.
The Muse 5.1
Gamesurround Muse™ 5.1 DVD - the successor of the widely renowned Gamesurround Muse™ XL - now includes advanced features such as its 6-channel outputs and comes bundled with Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 4.0 XP The card will support playback of digital music (MP3s, WMA, MIDI files) and 6 seperate channels for true 5.1 support. Pricing will be at 29.99 U.S Dollar in North America (excl TAX) or 49.99 Euro (incl TAX) (recommended retail price). The bundle will be packaged with PowerDVD 4.0, Sonic Foundry® Acid Xpress™ and Hercules® MediaStation II
The Game Theatre 7.1
Promoted as the first card with 7.1 surround sound and supports 7 speakers. Also the card supports Dolby Digital headphone technology, DTS and other Dolby Digital formats (Dolby Digital EX for example) on the digital and coaxial ports. The Game Theatre supports an hardware DSP MP3 decoder. Futhermore, the rack has also 4 USB ports. Software bundle will include MusicMatch™ Jukebox download, SirenTM Jukebox Xpress and Yamaha Soft Synthesizer™ S-YXG50TM. The card will be available in mid Oct. No word on pricing yet, more info can be found here
The Fortissimo III 7.1
Support for 2, 4, 5, 6 or 8 speakers. The Fortissimo has 7.1 capabilities, when using Dolby Digital EX DVD's. Of course you can use 7.1 support on other things too, but the Dolby Digital EX will give you the most of the 7.1 support. The software bundle will include Acid Xpress™, Hercules® MediaStation II and PowerDVD PRO EX. For images on how 7.1 should work, take a look at the hercules website. The card will cost 79.99 Euro (recommended retail price) and had 7 in/out's (including a digital spdif port). There will be an Midi port also, which can be installed optionally
The Digifire 7.1
This baby will be available in Oct 2002 and will cost around 99.99 Euro (recommended retail price). On the card there will be 3 Firewire ports, one internal and two external, besides the 6 other in/output ports. Again there will be an Midi port also, which can be installed optionally. Software will include PowerDVD EX, Power Director Pro 2.5ME, Acid Express, Hercules Media Station and Yamaha XG Player.
