Holophone announces MINI Surround Sound Microphone and Pocket PME

Holophone, a division of Rising Sun Productions, has announced the introduction of the Holophone-MINI Surround Sound Microphone and Pocket PME.
Based upon the successful and patented H2-PRO, the Holophone-MINI includes a 5.1 Surround recording head that connects to a portable, battery-operated Pocket PME that contains multi-channel microphone pre-amps, virtual surround headphone monitoring, a 5.1 Circle Surround encoder from SRS Labs, and an audio 'zoom' feature.
The Pocket PME is specifically designed for the professional broadcast camera market to enable instantaneous, professional quality, 5.1 surround sound capture on any camera for broadcast ENG and field applications. This new product will be launched at next week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas. Holophone is once again partnering with SRS Labs at NAB, booth #N2026 (located in the North Hall off the main concourse of the LVCC).
“We are thrilled to be launching this exciting new professional product at this year’s NAB,” said Jonathan Godfrey, CEO of Holophone. “The Holophone-MINI and Pocket PME have been designed specifically in response to the broadcast community’s stated desire for a portable, 5.1 surround sound recoding device for ENG and field applications.
“The Holophone-MINI along with the feature-loaded Pocket PME has a bright future with many possible market applications for these technologies, including consumer camcorders, web cams, military, security and law enforcement, cell phones, PDA’s, teleconferencing, and hearing aids/enhancement.”
Essentially two products that work together as one, the Holophone-MINI 5.1 surround sound recording head and the Pocket PME are portable, easy to use, and provide an intelligent array of features for broadcast professionals. The MINI can be mounted onto any camera, while the Pocket PME can accompany the MINI or be placed in a belt pack or even upon a tabletop for other applications. Together, they record 5.1 channels of discrete surround sound from a single point source on the camera via internal microphone pre-amps with unity gain control.
The PME encodes the discrete, 5.1 Surround sound audio streams real-time into Circle Surround from SRS Labs and outputs a matrix-encoded, two-channel, stereo signal that can be recorded onto tape via standard, L/R stereo input jacks on all cameras. The Circle Surround 5.1 encoded signal is entirely compatible with all surround playback systems, including Circle Surround (CS and CSII), Dolby Pro-Logic and Pro-Logic II. A discrete digital version of the PME is also in the works.
Other features of the PME include an instantaneous Virtual Surround Headphone output for direct surround field monitoring with volume control and an Audio 'Zoom' feature, which increases the forward bias of the recording. A provision for an external 'centre channel' or dialogue microphone line-in for ENG applications is also included as are a discrete 5.1 channel USB output and a visual LED indicator of surround sound sources.
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