Sennheiser and Zoom Partner for Virtual Reality AMBEO Sound

Sennheiser and Zoom have collaborated to offer virtual reality (VR) audio production support through Sennheiser’s AMBEO for VR partnership program.

Leave a Comment

At the recently completed International Broadcasting Convention (IBC), Sennheiser and Zoom entered into a partnership to support Sennheiser’s new AMBEO for VR (virtual reality) Partnership Program.

Veronique Larcher, co-director AMBEO, Sennheiser, says the newly announced collaboration will enable the two popular audio companies to address the growing virtual reality (VR) market.

“The future of audio is in immersive sound experience, and perhaps this is nowhere more apparent than in the field of VR,” states Larcher.

“With the launch of the AMBEO VR Mic last year we have provided an easy-to-use tool for 3D audio productions, while our AMBEO Blueprints website provides ample information on recording and mixing 3D audio. Now our new partnership program helps content creators to design the full VR experience with ease.”

Sennheiser & Zoom Products Combine for Virtual Reality

Among the initiatives that Zoom is undertaking to support its collaboration with Sennheiser is the launch of VR updates for some of its most popular products.

“At Zoom, we always take into high consideration new technology for audio recording,” comments Masa Lijima, CEO, Zoom Corporation. “VR audio has just started and we are happy to partner with Sennheiser AMBEO  to provide such an innovative VR recording solution to professionals and creators with our F8 and F4 field recorders.”

Zoom says it will introduce a firmware update for the F8 in late September, and it will offer a firmware update for the F4 in December 2017. Further underscoring the partnership and support for Virtual Reality, Sennheiser points out the motion picture equipment company Aaton Digital  will provide “AMBEO for VR” compatibility for its Cantar X3 and Cantar Mini audio recorders.

Sennheiser explains that by embedding the A-to-B converter, Zoom and Aaton Digital will save users from the inconvenience of having to externally convert a microphone’s “A-format” output to the processing compatible “B-format.” Contributing to the video side of AMBEO for VR are the companies Orah and Sphericam.

Sennheiser says Orah was formely known as VideoSwitch and is a major provider live and post-production 360-degree video creation software and hardware company. Among The company’s products features is an all-in-one 4K camera for VR live streaming. Sphericam is a camera company whose products include the Sphericam Beast system.

According to Sennheiser, when Sphericam’s Beast Camera System and its AMBEO VR mic are combined, a state-of-the-art 4K x 4K60 10-bit raw/prores capture solution is created that users can employ for a variety of VR situations.

Read next: If You Don’t Recognize this Technology’s Potential Now, You’ll Regret It Later

Additionally, Sennheiser says that Noise Makers is another AMBEO for VR partner and its Ambi Head binaural renderer enables monitoring ambisonic audio in 3D to create immersive audio for headphone listeners.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!