Immersive Media Research Debuts Vortex Zoom Encoder at Winter '09 NAMM

Samson Technologies and Immersive Media Research (IMR) announces the missing link for owners of Zoom's groundbreaking H2 Handy Recorder. The H2 is the first affordable handheld surround-sound recorder and has become wildly popular. With four built-in microphones, the H2 captures 360° sound into two stereo WAV files.

Until now, there was no easy way for H2 owners to share their unique surround recordings with the world. IMR's Vortex Zoom Encoder, a streamlined program for Mac OS X and Windows, solves that challenge. With one click, Vortex Zoom Encoder converts the H2's unique dual-stereo recordings into standard formats that all consumers can enjoy and share via familiar programs, portable devices and home theater systems. H2 owners simply drop the two stereo WAVs onto the Vortex Zoom Encoder window and click one of three export buttons: DTS, Binaural, or 5.1 WAV.

Additional details on the output formats:

• DTS WAV is the easiest surround-sound format to author: Users simply drag the 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 2-channel WAV files to any CD-burning program and burn a CD as normal. They then play this special CD through the S/PDIF output on a CD player, computer, or Sony PlayStation 3 into a DTS-compatible home theater system. The signal automatically expands back into glorious 5.1-channel surround sound.

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• Binaural WAV employs IMR's proprietary ImmersiveStereo™ technology to convert surround-sound recordings into a dramatically real headphone experience. Users can transfer the resulting two-channel WAV files to portable players, burn them to audio CD, or convert them to compressed formats such as MP3 for more portability.

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• 5.1 WAV is a six-channel, 44.1kHz interleaved WAV file. Users can drop these files into the free Fraunhofer MP3 Surround Encoder(http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/amm/mp3sur/index.jsp). MP3 Surround files are completely backward compatible: They play like normal stereo MP3s in standard players, but expand into 5.1 channels in MP3 Surround players such as Winamp. These 5.1 WAV files also load into many DAWs and video editing programs.

Vortex Zoom Encoder runs on Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista. The program operates in full-featured mode for 30 days and then reverts to a handy, free player for Zoom H2 surround files, allowing users to hear their four-channel recordings through four speakers. Users can unlock and restore DTS, Binaural, and 5.1 WAV encoding for $25.