Microphone Requirements For Cortana

I have Cortana set up and working pretty nicely with this microphone.

http://www.amazon.com/Kinobo-Microph...8980144&sr=1-1

On initial setup I did get the "might not work so good with this microphone" (paraphrasing) dialog.

To my Star Trek delight it responds to "Hey Cortana" fairly consistently and I'd estimate speech recognition in the mid to upper 90% range even in a room with some background noise. TV etc...

Being curious i started looking into "can I make it better." That was about an hour ago.

Specs from Microsoft call for a "High fidelity microphone array and Hardware driver with microphone array geometry exposed. Huh?

After copious Googling I haven't been able to come up with anywhere or anybody that will fess up to having such a thing for sale.

My question then is. Can anybody link me to a product page that shows a microphone for a desktop computer sporting those capabilities? It could be either USB or 3.5 mm for use with a discrete SoundBlaster card.

Thanks in advance.

D

bro67 said:

Any decent Gaming headset would work. You could probably use a Bluetooth headset with no issues.

Thank you bro67 for taking the time to reply. I'm sure you are correct. As I said what I'm using now works fairly well.

I should have been more specific. I am not interested in wearing a headset.

I am looking for something which specifically meets Microsoft's stated system requirements of a "High fidelity microphone array AND hardware driver with microphone array geometry exposed" which I can use from the desk.

More of a curiosity really since I really don't know what that means nor can I seem to find anyone who does.

Thanks

D

Datapod said:

Thank you bro67 for taking the time to reply. I'm sure you are correct. As I said what I'm using now works fairly well.

I should have been more specific. I am not interested in wearing a headset.

I am looking for something which specifically meets Microsoft's stated system requirements of a "High fidelity microphone array AND hardware driver with microphone array geometry exposed" which I can use from the desk.

More of a curiosity really since I really don't know what that means nor can I seem to find anyone who does.

Thanks

D

Funny I should stumble upon this post after I stumbled upon the same description for preparing to start a n00b pod cast lol

After a quick google I can see this : Amazon.com: Andrea (C1-1019800-1) SoundMAX Superbeam Array Microphone - 3.5 mm Connector: Computers Accessories

(Should I not be able to link here in this post, here's a quick description:
Overview: Andrea Electronics External digital stereo audio PC superbeam array microphone with 3.5mm conector. Andrea PC microphone accessories are designed for PC Communications applications, Enhancing the audio input experience. Features: SUMA stereo microphone input supports sample rates up to 48K for high quality voice input. Use with Andrea's AudioCommander software to optimize multimedia control. Provides control of audio input technology, and features: DSDA2 and 3 beam forming and PureAudio noise reduction software. Provides directional array microphone noise cancellation, designed to enable far-field (Headsets free) speech recognition command and control performance. No Filtering: Provides unfiltered stereo microphone audio input for high fidelity stereo recordings. Package Contens: Aray 2S Microphone Driver Software User Manual

I have marked the part that I deem important here. The fact that a stereo mic really technically is an array of two mics makes me think that this is what they are talking about with the "first" part. The second part is obviously referring to being able to capture in stereo on a driver level. (Which I don't think should pose a problem in this day and age, but who knows?)

Please note that I offer this purely as food for thought and not in any way against you. This is just how I understand this.

I think my requirements for starting a high quality podcast from scratch with not a lot of experience are very similar to yours when I look at existing documentation.

I'mt thinking however, while perusing google, that on (for example) youtube, these guys use different mic's (sorry for the awkward linking).

So now I am even more confused

mitoskalandiel said:

Funny I should stumble upon this post after I stumbled upon the same description for preparing to start a n00b pod cast lol

Funnier still. That's the one I ended up with. Works great for Cortana.