Hurricane showcases audio technology

One very trivial, peripheral observation from the ongoing TV coverage of Hurricane Katrina: the current generation of microphone windscreens is amazingly competent.

I just watched one of the clichéd reporter-leaning-into-the-wind reports on Fox News and while the guy was clocking wind gusts of around 50 mph (he was in Florida, well to the east of the hurricane) and was standing in the knee deep white-capping storm surge, his voice was coming through with almost studio quality.

The apparent simplicity of a microphone windscreen obscures the complexity of providing an acoustically pure input of the desired frequencies (primarily the reporter's voice) while blocking the wall of noise generated by high winds and waves. I have no idea how it's done, but I'm impressed.

Comments

I was wondering the same thing this morning while watching a live update. I recalled past storm reporting where the reporter's voice was so distorted by the gales, you could only hear one word out of six.

I, too, am impressed!

Posted by: Cowtown Pattie at August 29, 2005 01:19 PM

The frequencies of sound produced by high winds and waves are known; it's a simple matter (at least, nowadays it is) to analyze those sounds, send them through a circuit which inverts them in phase, and then combines the original and inverted signals into a single waveform. If it's done right — original and inverted are equal in amplitude — they'll cancel each other out.

Posted by: CGHill at August 29, 2005 03:29 PM

So, you're saying that it's the real time audio processing done by the broadcast that's the hero, not the windscreen?

That's actually more impressive.

Posted by: Eric at August 29, 2005 03:33 PM

I'm not absolutely certain that's what they're using in this particular instance, but the technology has been around for a few years now and doesn't cost a bundle - you can buy it in headphones now in the $100-200 range.

Posted by: CGHill at August 29, 2005 07:14 PM
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