Posted on 16th Jul 2010 @ 9:52 PM

Rumors have been rife on the media player grapevine for a while about the “plus” version of Realtek processors (1073 and 1283). Some forums have been referring to it as ‘plus’, some as ‘DD+’. We have heard our users via email, phone and community forums, asking about this HD Audio enabled processor.

The actual processor name is 1073DD C+ and 1283C+. AC Ryan has been shipping Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini equipped with this new processor since April 2010. Yes, since April. We are one of the first (if not THE first) to ship with this processor as soon as it was available. We have not made any announcement about this new version of the processor because the firmware SDK (Software Development Kit) from Realtek to support the new “HD Audio enabled” feature has not been ready… until recently. Without that firmware, the new HD Audio features are not enabled.

Now, our HD Audio enabled firmware for Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini is almost ready. Yes, you can expect a release within a week. Watch out for it.

What does this mean? It means if you’ve purchased your Playon!HD and/or Playon!HD Mini during or after April 2010, you will be able to enable extra 7.1 HD Audio after updating with the coming HD Audio enabled firmware update. In addition to the currently already supported FLAC 7.1 and AAC 7.1, which specific HD Audio will be additionally supported?… more details when the new firmware is released..

For the future potential owners of Playon!, we have also now started re-labelling the Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini with new product codes ACR-PV73100P+ and ACR-PV73200P+ respectively. However, we want to emphasise that with or without this new product code, all Playon!HD & Playon!HD Mini PURCHASED from April onwards is guaranteed of this new processor.