The Altitude Platform advances in 2021

Despite the global challenges that COVID 19 presented, 2020 was an exceptionally productive year for Trinnov’s R&D team.

Trinnov introduced two features still unavailable elsewhere:

• DTS:X Pro was publicly released in February 2020 in its complete configuration - a feat no other manufacturer can yet match even a full year later.

• Trinnov released its exclusive Dolby Atmos object viewer in September - yet another free of charge addition.

These major contributions were recognized with multiple awards in 2020.

Despite this period of uncertainty, Trinnov added extra resources and placed additional focus on research and development. This announcement is intended to reaffirm our development strategy, and we are proud to be able to disclose the first results of these efforts, to be released in 2021.

“At Trinnov, we value both ongoing innovation and sustainability. We feel these are important values, to our long-term customers and to potential Altitude owners. In 2021, we will continue on this path. Our plan is to introduce multiple features that will enhance and improve the performance of all Altitude processors, regardless of when they were purchased,” says Arnaud Laborie, co-founder and CEO.

 

Redefining the AV Processor since 2014

For too long, home theater enthusiasts who wanted to own the best had to renew their AV processors every few years. When we released the Altitude platform all the way back in 2014, we created a new market sector, where the AV Processor becomes more sustainable, delivering higher long-term value to customers along with unparalleled performance.

This is made possible with a very specific design philosophy where:

• The hardware platform is the innovation vehicle, with as few as possible required hardware upgrades. Minor incremental changes are integrated into the platform over time, but these do not impact first users. The fewer the changes, the better. 

• Software updates are delivered on a regular basis, as often as possible, bringing maximum value to our customers.

The same shift is already happening in the car industry, with leading manufacturers delivering added value to their customers via software updates, regardless of the car platform originally purchased. 

This fresh approach will be more obvious as you read below.

 

Adding long-term value with software updates

Ravenna / AES67

Audio over IP has already reshaped some branches of the professional audio and video industry, bringing much more efficient, convenient and cost-effective ways to transport vast amounts of audio and video signals across large infrastructures.

Audio over IP raises technical challenges, especially when it comes to synchronization with sources and audio endpoints. As part of our significant R&D resources investment in 2020, we have managed to handle the requisite, multiple clock domains with the highest performance.

True to our commitment and vision, we are pleased to announce that Ravenna/AES67 support will be coming to the Altitude platform in 2021, once again free of charge for all existing and future Altitude owners. 

We will be releasing a more detailed ‘release note’ in due course, and have started assembling technical documentation to assist our valued customers and dealers to successfully implement audio over IP in projects where it is required.

IMAX Enhanced

We are in the final stages of certification and will be officially releasing IMAX Enhanced in the coming months so that our customers can enjoy the newly released content in the best possible manner. 

As before with Trinnov codec updates, this update will naturally be provided free of charge, and without requiring a hardware change, as initially announced.

Loudspeaker/Room Optimization improvements

As mentioned in the introduction, we substantially increased our research and development team in 2020.

Without disclosing too much, we are happy to say the Altitude platform will receive a first round of ongoing improvements which increases the Optimizer’s performance in 2021.

Additional innovations are currently being developed and will be released in the near future. 

 

Sustainability also applies to hardware

The Altitude hardware platform was primarily designed as a software host, and as a vehicle for innovation. Our intention is and has always been to deliver a sustainable platform that is able to receive and support new features over time with the same or better audio quality, without requiring any customers to pay for upgrades unless absolutely necessary.

Of course, we at Trinnov firmly believe that the room itself is the biggest imperfection when it comes to sound reproduction. This is why the major focus of our R&D efforts is on acoustic optimization. 

However, the choice and design of the Altitude’s hardware elements obviously have an impact on performance. Long-term supply chain issues require us to review internal details of the product regularly. For example, we began preparing a minor, rolling change to our DAC boards that will end up improving the measurements a bit, though any audibility is likely to be small. And we will provide an HDMI 2.1 upgrade path once the technology is sufficiently mature. These evolutions are part of the ongoing, continuous improvements we seek to apply to all Trinnov products.

Proof of our commitment to supporting our products over the long term is that even all these years later, we still support the very first Optimizers sold in 2005. Sustainability is deep in our DNA as a company.

The Altitude platform has been designed for performance and longevity. Over time, we have made many innovations and improvements available to our customers, mostly as free software updates. Less frequently, the evolution of available technologies require hardware updates – like the various incarnations of HDMI. The strength of the Altitude platform lies in its ability to incorporate both hardware and software improvements easily and quickly over the extended lifetime of the product.