Moron nVidia's sound on video options

[Crashman]

OK, well since around 1998 I've been occasionally suggesting that combining audio and video on a single chip would be a great solution because the same geometry used to position the image of a sound source could be used to position the sound. nVidia increased my hopes when they developed the SoundStorm solution, and increased them more when they said we'd be finding SoundStorm in unxepected places.

Well, now we have the HDMI interface to think about! It can provide audio and video on the same cable. From Anandtech:

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i=2321&p=2" target="_new">Audio poses a fairly large problem for PC manufacturers. While it’s easy for an IGP motherboard to include audio and video on the same interface, graphics cards are only designed for video. At first, graphics cards and motherboards that adopt HDMI will probably opt out of utilizing audio over HDMI as most HDMI-ready devices allow analog stereo input (just as DVI does). However, if we think more long term, fusing audio and video on the same output puts ATI and NVIDIA at particular odds with discreet and integrated audio partners. After all, Intel just released their 8 channel digital audio solution, and companies like Creative and VIA have a significant portion of their business riding on the fact that separate inputs are needed for audio and video. <b>Will we see a synergy from graphics and audio manufacturers to consolidate audio and video back down onto the graphics card?</b></A>

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[TheGreatGrapeApe]

HDMI? What's That?

Well the only barrier to all this I'd say is the various patents that people like Creative, ATI and nVidia hold.

Creative's patents and those they bought alone have stiffled many interesting solutions. That would be my biggest concern, otherwise I'd say it's the ineviteable evolution of the interface. But it is funny how we've gone from everything on one output (coaxial RF cable) to seperate channels (composite, svhs, component, DVI, etc), back to combined. Not sure if this will allow much flexibility, but it sure makes a single solution attractive. The only problem, the price of the bloody HDMI cables!


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