Bert Keely - Why does a Tablet PC have three microphones? | TheChannel9Team

mochant

The array is used by all applications. I have found the sound quality blows away any laptop I have used before for applications like Skype as well as the Tablet OS voice dictation. The array acts as a noise canceling system. I also use an Etymotic headset for Skype and I've been told that the sound quality from the array mikes in the Portege is even better than this relatively expensive headset (around $70).

prompt

Cool! Can't wait to see this materialize in the mainstream.

Kryptos
Backup People!

What model is the tablet? Is it out yet? Are we going to see this in action.

I have a Toshiba Portege E200, which only has one mic (as far as I'm aware)....

And the sound it's records, isn't that great.

Keep these videos comming!

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

I took a seminar on speech recognition last year, and one of the projects the students were doing dealt with noise reduction using array microphones. The approach they were taking was trying to cancel out the noise using phase inversion with two mikes, but at the time I thought that wouldn't work because of the relatively low speed of sound and the distance between the microphones. I was discussing this with the course assistant (who was a PhD student), and we decided it'd probably be better to use use three microphones to triangulate the source and isolate that instead of trying to isolate the noise and cancel it out. And now I'm proved right!

I guess great minds really do think alike! Wink

mochant

Kryptos wrote:
What model is the tablet? Is it out yet? Are we going to see this in action.

I have a Toshiba Portege E200, which only has one mic (as far as I'm aware)....

And the sound it's records, isn't that great.

We're talking about the Tablet PC model: Portege M200/205. It has the array mikes because voice dictation/recognition is an integral part of the Tablet PC 2005 Edition OS. I'm not aware of other Toshoba models that offer this - perhaps the new media-oriented models do too.

Kryptos
Backup People!

I have a M200 which I bought about a month ago... (Model Number: PPM21E-0260Z-EN), I'm in the UK.

So does this have 3 mics?

Do I need other software as I tried recording a meeting I had in a bar/pub the other night and I wasn't that impressed.

mochant

Take a look at the bezel around your M200's screen. You should see on mic hoele at the top (in laptop mode) and two at the bottom. If you have these three holes, you have the tri-mic array.

YMMV. I've found that it works great in a office setting or when I;'m in my den at home with the TV going or my son chatting on the phone nearby. It cancels all of that background noise out. If the ambient sound is too high, a headset is always going to work better simply due to proximity to your mouth.