For years, conference call technology was stuck – leaving frustrated users hoping for the kind of breakthrough that has transformed other sectors. Microphone Mist technology is that breakthrough. It fills a room with virtual microphones so everyone can be heard everywhere in a space, and remote callers feel like they’re in the room with the team.
A virtual microphone is an individual “pickup point” created when two or more physical microphones work together to focus their sound pickup on a distinct zone. Microphone Mist technology listens to each virtual mic simultaneously and optimizes each one for a natural listening experience.
Dive deeper into virtual microphones
Using a simple interface, define the pickup zone for your presentations so you hear more presenter and less audience. It’s like crowd control for your audio.
See how Active Zone Control works
IST preemptively identifies unwanted sounds, like HVAC, and simply stops picking them up. It’s kind of amazing. And completely unique.
See how IST works
Ready for hybrid? Microphone Mist technology lets everyone be heard in meetings and classes – whether in the room or remote. And Nureva® audio automatically adapts if you reconfigure a space.
Get true full-room pickup that lets remote participants feel like they’re in the room.
Install a system in under an hour. And autocalibration means your room is instantly and always ready.
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Versatile alternative to pro AV for mid-size meeting rooms and classrooms
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Large-room audio system that delivers pro AV quality features and performance
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Integrated audio and video solution for mid-size classrooms and training spaces
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Integrated audio and video solution for large classrooms and training spaces
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Easy-to-use APIs that let you integrate your devices and automate tasks
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Multiple digital signal processors (DSPs) combined with proprietary field-programmable gate array (FPGA) logic enable “positional” mic pickup. This allows the system to use position-based gain control (PBGC) to make specific optimizations to the microphone system and processing of all the sound sources in the room. These patented proprietary processes enable Nureva to optimize the talker’s gain while keeping ambient noise quieter and more constant. No matter where a person moves in the room, a virtual microphone is always nearby – and no detectable transition occurs as the talker moves between virtual mics as one might experience when moving between beams in a beamforming system.
The pickup zone of a typical beamforming microphone system is determined by the direction each mic is aimed. The automatic gain control circuit for each mic may not know how far away a talker is from the mic. It also might not distinguish speaking from other sound sources (such as typing, HVAC, etc.), so all signals – good and bad – are treated equally. A system relying on directional pickup may also require a higher level of processing to be added to the signal.
Microphone Mist technology fills a room with thousands of virtual microphones that let the system know the best sound source of each talker in the room – even when they are moving. This allows the system to use position-based gain control (PBGC) to make specific optimizations to the microphone system and processing of all the sound sources in the room. This patented proprietary technology enables us to optimize the talker’s gain while keeping ambient noise at a quieter and more consistent level for more natural conversations.
Traditional
Used in most traditional audio conferencing systems, AGC keeps the audio output level within a targeted minimum-maximum range by adding more gain on quiet talkers and reducing the gain on loud talkers. But AGC on a mic treats the audio signal holistically, increasing the signal from both the talker and ambient sounds equally. It raises the talker’s level but also the ambient noise floor – not an optimal listening experience.
New
Microphone Mist technology listens simultaneously to each of the thousands of virtual microphones it deploys in a room (essentially, the “positions” in PBGC). By knowing the position of each sound source, such as talkers, Microphone Mist technology adjusts the gain so the talker can be heard clearly while keeping a more consistent level of ambient noise. The result is easy-to-hear, natural sounding conversations.
Traditional
With many conventional systems (especially complex installations), dealing with acoustic return echo may require a technician to manually calibrate the echo canceller system to a room’s acoustic properties. The technician sends a calibration signal – a short tone – through the speaker system that is picked up by the microphone system. The acoustic return echo delay is measured and used to calculate echo canceller parameters for the system. The process can be intrusive and time-consuming and is not practical while a meeting room is in use (the room must be quiet), so the room is taken offline. Subsequent changes to the room may impact echo canceller performance and require recalibration.
New
Nureva has solved this problem using continuous autocalibration, a proprietary process built into our Microphone Mist technology. This process measures the acoustic environment in real time for each microphone and speaker combination using a sound mask-like signal, that if perceived at all, is heard as the background ambient noise common in most commercial environments. A technician is not required, nor is the loud calibration signal of the manual process, and the room doesn’t have to be quiet. The continuous autocalibration process means that the echo canceller will automatically deliver consistent performance from the beginning of the call to the end.
Traditional
Traditional microphone technologies, such as beamforming, subdivide the room into large zones (as many zones as there are microphones). If there are, for example, three zones in a beamforming array, you get low spatial resolution information. Although the coverage zones are large, traditional systems are not able to discriminate individual sound sources within a single zone. This means diminished ability to optimize individual sound sources in a zone for the appropriate gain setting, noise filtering and overall audio signal optimization.
New
Microphone Mist technology fills a room with thousands of virtual microphones, subdividing the room into thousands of spatial bubbles for higher spatial resolution of audio signals. This allows the system to isolate and zoom in on individual talkers, giving it more audio information that in turn allows it to optimize both acoustic microphone pickup performance and post-processing of the audio signal.
Active Zone Control allows you to designate an “active” zone where microphone pickup is maintained while pickup in the rest of the space is reduced.
This means that lecturers or presenters can move freely in the active zone, confident that remote participants can hear them clearly above the voices of those outside the zone.
It’s easy to use the system remote to toggle back to full-room pickup when it’s time for questions from the audience or broader discussion.
Set the active zone for the required dimensions at the front of the room, and the person speaking can be heard more clearly while sounds and voices from the rest of the space are suppressed. It adds up to better audio for remote audience members and lecture capture.
When it’s time for questions from the audience or group discussions, switch to the full zone setting to activate all the virtual microphones in the space so everyone in the room can be heard by the remote class or audience.
Intelligent Sound Targeting (IST) identifies and stops targeting persistent undesirable sound sources like HVAC and display fans to give remote callers a better listening experience.
HVAC and other unwanted sounds can seriously affect conference call audio – ultimately causing frustration and even reducing productivity. But IST, a feature of Microphone MistTM technology, takes a groundbreaking approach to this problem. Instead of attempting to suppress undesired sounds completely, it uses its intelligent sound identification capabilities to mitigate the negative impact of those sounds in an elegant and efficient manner. You hear voices better and unwanted noises less.
Achieving rich, full-room audio pickup in noisy meeting spaces has always posed a significant technical challenge. Traditional systems use “post-processing” filters to suppress sounds. However, these require substantial processing resources and are not always effective. But IST takes a “pre-processing” approach. Using adaptive learning algorithms, IST pre-emptively identifies and learns unwanted sounds and then simply stops targeting them. It’s a feature other technologies can’t match.
