New Production Tools from Sonic Studio

SACD.1 (Click for a close-up)

DDP (Click for a close-up)

Sonic Studio launched several new products at the 116th AES Convention: SACD.1, a stand-alone authoring tool for the production of SACD masters and DDP, a playback and PQ Code management application for manipulation of disk image files written in the DDP or Disc Description Protocol file format.

SACD.1 is a Macintosh-based software application which allows the authoring and creation of Scarlet Book compliant SACD titles. SACD.1 is a complete, workstation-agnostic image creation tool; from import of any compatible DSD-IFF files, through delivery of a final Scarlet Book layer on AIT or DLT tape. SACD.1 will work with any DSD-IFF files, not just those produced by Sonic Studios own DSD.1 workstation. The final output, an SACD compliant cutting master is written to Sony AIT Type 1 tape cartridges for delivery to the manufacturing plant. SACD.1 also includes full DST encoding for authoring SACDs in 6 channel surround.

Sonic Studio SACD.1 is priced at $4,995.

With thousands of CD masters archived in the DDP disc description file format at labels and mastering facilities around the world, easy and inexpensive access to these files for simple QC purposes has become a high priority. Until now, simply opening a DDP to check playback or PQ information has required a complete editing workstation.

Sonic Studio DDP is a low-cost, standalone utility for Macintosh OS X which allows playback and PQ manipulation of DDP image files. The program features the familiar Sonic Studio user interface and allows any OS X based Mac to open, playback and save a DDP image file to disk. While the current version allows playback and PQ editing, future versions will include the ability to edit together sections from multiple DDP images for production of compilation titles.

Sonic Studio DDP is priced at $499 USD and is available from authorized Sonic Studio resellers.