– First Highly Accurate Desktop Microphone that picks up questions from throughout the room at ranges up to 30 feet, while suppressing background noise –
SUDBURY, MA, June 16, 2009 – Acoustic Magic, Inc. and Panopto Inc, today announced that the Voice Tracker™ array microphone is now recommended for use with CourseCast, a leading lecture capture product.
Now for the first time, a single microphone can capture questions from the class as well as the lecture from the teacher. There is no need for wireless lapel mics that require batteries, or a series of mixed microphones placed throughout the room.
“In our tests, it delivered as promised: excellent sound quality, even at a distance, consistent and configuration-free speaker tracking, and near-elimination of ambient noises like vents, fans, and traffic drone”, explained Eric Burns, founder and CTO of Panopto, Inc. “In an echo-prone room with bare floors, high ceilings, and bare brick walls, the Voice Tracker™ produced professional-sounding audio with no fuss. Panopto is proud to recommend it to our customers; it is an exciting product that fills a niche underserved by existing solutions.”
“Acoustic Magic is excited that Panopto endorses our Voice Tracker™ microphone for meeting and classroom recording.” said Bob Feingold, CEO of Acoustic Magic, Inc. “Although the Voice Tracker™ is technically sophisticated, its is surprisingly inexpensive (under $300) and provides a very cost-effective solution which is much appreciated by education providers, especially at this time.”
The Voice Tracker USB array microphone incorporates two-stage noise reduction, coupled with the sensitivity of eight microphone elements, to give the Voice Tracker™ outstanding range and sound quality. The two-stage noise reduction originates with the array microphone locating the person speaking and, using patented steering technology, electronically focusing the microphone elements in their direction, creating the spatial filtering that eliminates sounds and reverberation from other parts of the room. In addition to spatial filtering, proprietary digital noise reduction processing removes additional background noise. The combination of these digital noise reduction algorithms and eight continual-processing microphone elements together greatly enhance sound quality. The Voice Tracker™ is also the only array microphone on the market that can scan a full 360 degrees.
Panopto’s presentation capture suite is used in a wide variety of scenarios, from educational lectures to corporate meetings to personal, self-serve video multimedia capture from the desktop. These different scenarios demand different types of capture hardware, and Acoustic Magic’s Voice Tracker™ microphone fills an important and surprisingly broad requirement: far superior to integrated laptop and webcam mics, more versatile than professional directional mics, and free of the hassle of lapel or headset microphones, the Voice Tracker™ is ideal for a simple, self-serve presentation recording setup.
About Acoustic Magic, Inc
Acoustic Magic, Inc. manufactures the Voice Tracker™ desktop array microphone that has found application in automatic speech recognition, meeting and lecture recording, VoIP and conventional teleconferencing, voice control for home automation, and security surveillance. Further information about Acoustic Magic and the Voice Tracker™ array microphone can be found at www.Acoustic Magic.com
About Panopto, Inc.
Panopto, Inc. is a privately held provider of rich-media knowledge casting and management solutions to the education, corporate, government and healthcare markets. Panopto Hosted is available on monthly and annual subscription levels. CourseCast is a trademark of Panopto, Inc. All other brand, product, service and feature names or trademarks are the property of their respective owners. More information about Panopto can be found at www.panopto.com. Contact: Beth Bellon.
