Microphone
Holophone offers Professional 5.1 Surround Sound at the camera for US$600
The vast majority of multi-channel sound (stereo, 5.1, 6.1, etc) is produced post-production, making it difficult to squeeze professional-grade discrete 5.1 audio quality into modest production budgets … until now. The Holophone PortaMic 5.1 and PortaMic Pro surround microphones both sit atop your video camera and offer a cost-effective means of recording surround sound directly to a camera or indeed, any stereo recording device. At US$600 and US$1000 respectively, the microphones permanently offer professional discrete surround recording from a single point source for a once-only price off, with no additional mixing required. Bargain! Read More
Invisible Bluetooth Earpiece brings out your inner Secret Service agent
Brickhouse Security’s Micro Bluetooth Earpiece is so small it actually fits inside the ear canal to allow covert two-way communication via any Bluetooth mobile phone or two-way radio. Its size means that a battery is out of the question, so the tiny device is powered by magnetism, which is also used to remove the earpiece from the ear canal. Read More
The days of a Universal Translator like the one that made chatting between alien species a non-issue in Star Trek might be some way off yet. But a new device from NEC is definitely a step in the right direction for those of us on planet Earth looking for a way to communicate with other language speakers that doesn’t involve a human translator or a well-thumbed phrase book. The prototype device called a “Tele Scouter” is a glasses type display that translates the foreign language being spoken by a partner and projects the translation onto a tiny retinal display. Read More
Video: Laser/smoke microphone promises the world's most accurate sound capture
The quest for ever more realistic sound reproduction seems set to move to a whole new level. Traditional microphones convert sound to electrical signals by measuring the deflections that sound vibrations cause in a diaphragm. But each diaphragm has its own weight, inertia and resistance, which colors the sound that gets recorded. So American digital audio pioneer David Schwartz, who invented the MP3 sound format, has come up with a novel new type of microphone that virtually eliminates the microphone's mechanical interference with the sound. The laser/smoke microphone uses a laser to measure the deflections that sound makes in a steady stream of smoke - which is virtually weightless. Prepare for a new wave of high-fidelity microphone technology. Read More
Apple added a number of updates to various iPod models at its Rock and Roll event. The iPod that sported the most obvious changes was undoubtedly the nano, which now includes a built-in video camera, a much anticipated FM radio, and built-in pedometer. The new 5G nano also features a slightly (0.2-inches) larger 2.2-inch display, and built-in microphone and speaker, which means watching those newly recorded videos need not be a solitary affair. Read More
A portable camcorder that records MPEG-4 SP video format at 30 frames per second - in stereo - has been released by Zoom. The Q3 Handy Video Recorder combines 640 x 480 resolution video recording with studio quality audio through two built-in condenser microphones. Read More
With the democratization of digital music recording and production in full flight thanks to applications like GarageBand, Shure have released three new USB-based products to cater for the ever increasing market of users who need to record audio to their computers, but don't have access to professional pre-amplifiers - the PG27USB and PG42USB USB condenser microphones, and the X2u XLR-to-USB adapter which turns any existing XLR microphone into a plug-and-play USB microphone. Read More
