Planisphere Productions, a new player in audio drama, is trying something very different. They’ve released the first three episodes of Transit, a new Science Fiction series, in the AC3 format. This means that the show is in SURROUND SOUND format. Transit is “a multi-format multimedia-spanning project that consists of a series of Science Fiction themed audio dramas recorded in and optimized for listening to in 5.1 Surround Sound.” The project includes a “wiki”-style website called The Node that features show information as well as side-story content. I had a devil of a time finding an AC3 player but I finally found some freeware called “Media Player Classic version 6.4.9.0” which plays .AC3 files just fine (do a google search).
|Episode 1 AC3| Episode 2 AC3| Episode 3 AC3|
Another problem, this format means you can’t take this show with you in your portable media player. But don’t dismiss Transit as not worth bothering with just yet. In order to interest you they’ve also made the some “webisodes” available in the MP3 format. They’ll give you an idea of the production values, acting and the writing are like. \
|Webisode 1 MP3| Webisode 2 MP3| Webisode 3 MP3|
I’ve listened a few of the shows and webisodes and Transit is sounding pretty damn sweet!