Linn Teams With Sony and ESS Technology

The Linn ‘Silver Disc Engine’ DVD player will be the first to use ESS Technology’s Vibratto navigation software in a Super Audio CD environment, but the partnership goes beyond the company’s own machines…

Linn hope to produce for, or license to other manufactures, a core disc playback environment to support, among others, CD-DA, SACD (two-channel and multi-channel), DVD-Video and DVD-Audio. The system uses an audio/video architecture designed by Linn, ESS Technology navigation and MPEG decoders with a transport and Super Audio CD front-end provided by Sony. The intention is to produce an architecture that will “…play any audio disc put into it”.

Acting as a reference design house for Sony and ESS, Linn will produce two standard solutions for other manufacturers to work with, one mid-market and the other high-end, both of which can be tailored to suit particular needs. Each OEM solution will consist of transport, circuit boards and control software and will become available from mid 2002 onwards.