Does the HoloLens have a Bone-Micro?

Mauravan

Hi everyone,

We were discussing the possibility of the HoloLens having a Bone-Micro. Maybe under the Nosegrip? On the other hand, there are 4 drill holes on the front side of the HoloLens.

Does anyone know more?

cheers

HoloSheep

@Mauravan

Yep, as I said, 'Bone-Mic' came up and Joe made a point of being very clear and putting any rumors to rest by confirming that the HoloLens does not use bone conducting technology for its awesome keyword recognition and other audio recording support. More importantly he also details that 2 of the 4 mics target the users mouth and the other 2 are picking up the environment and that allows the HoloLens to not only get great audio directly from the person using the device but it also is able to isolate the background and environment sounds for better noise cancelation and clean up of the users spoken audio. Joe was just full of cool information!

Frimy

Hello, the microphones seem to be classical, you can find the hardware details here:
https://developer.microsoft.com/fr-fr/windows/holographic/hardware_details

james_ashley

Hi @Mauravan,

The microphone array, made up of four unidirectional mics, when combined with special software creates a virtual directional microphone that zooms in on the speaker and cancels out background noise. It's similar to how the original Kinect mic array worked, I believe.

HoloSheep

@Mauravan

Joe Kelly from Microsoft gave an awesome talk on Audio for HoloLens where he also talked specifically about the microphones and a bunch of other fascinating stuff.

His talk is archived on our groups YouTube channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4rNVwO40Qo
Joe's portion of the meeting starts around the 42:00 min mark.

Interestingly "Bone-Mic" did come up in his presentation.

Mauravan

@james_ashley said:
Hi @Mauravan,

The microphone array, made up of four unidirectional mics, when combined with special software creates a virtual directional microphone that zooms in on the speaker and cancels out background noise. It's similar to how the original Kinect mic array worked, I believe.

In the Video he is actually talking about two microphones beeing on the outside and beeng omnidirectional and building a Stereo-Stream.

He is talking about NOT doing bone-conducting. There is no mention about having a bonemicro

james_ashley

@Mauravan,

Not sure who you're talking to, there. In any case, totally agree with you. Definitely not bone-conducting. The hololens uses beam-forming mics, per @HoloSheep's posted vid.

HoloSheep

@Mauravan

Yep, as I said, 'Bone-Mic' came up and Joe made a point of being very clear and putting any rumors to rest by confirming that the HoloLens does not use bone conducting technology for its awesome keyword recognition and other audio recording support. More importantly he also details that 2 of the 4 mics target the users mouth and the other 2 are picking up the environment and that allows the HoloLens to not only get great audio directly from the person using the device but it also is able to isolate the background and environment sounds for better noise cancelation and clean up of the users spoken audio. Joe was just full of cool information!

DavidKlineMS

As @HoloSheep mentions, Joes talk was full of great information and is highly recommended.

I would like to point out (and reinforce) his mention (at approx 45:00 into the recording) of the Microphone Stream plugin and scripts in the HoloToolkit.  There is an example of using the MicStreamSelector plugin in the MicrophoneStream test scene.

I have used the Microphone Stream plugin in upcoming update to the Spatial Sound Holographic Academy course to apply effects to your voice. The update is being finalized and should be online shortly.

Thanks!
David