Microphone apparatus, reproducing apparatus, and image taking apparatus

• US 20050140810A1
• Filed: 10/19/2004
• Published: 06/30/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Ozawa, Kazuhiko
• Granted Patent: US 8,411,165 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/333.20
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/531 being rotatable or detachable
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/631 Graphical user interfaces [GUI] specially adapted for controlling image capture or setting capture parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2201/403 Linear arrays of transducers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2430/23 Direction finding using a sum-delay beam-former
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2499/11 Transducers incorporated or for use in hand-held devices, e.g. mobile phones, PDA's, camera's
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/005 for combining the signals of two or more microphones specially adapted for hearing aids H04R25/407

Abstract

A microphone apparatus of the present invention is applied to a camera including a panel type view finder for displaying a picture taken by the camera, a touch panel for pointing a desired position of the picture displayed on the view finder, determining circuit for determining a direction of the real picture in accordance with the position pointed by the touch panel, a microphone device having a plurality of microphone units for collecting a sound that comes from the picture taken by the camera; and directivity generating circuit for generating a sound directivity signal with which the microphone device collects the sound coming from the direction determined by the determining circuit.

Claims

1. A microphone apparatus comprising:

image taking means having at least an image pickup device and a image taking optical system;

displaying means for displaying a picture imaged by said image taking means;

pointing means for pointing a desired position of the picture displayed on the displaying means;

determining means for determining a direction of an object of the picture in accordance with the position pointed by said pointing means;

sound collecting means having a plurality of microphone units for collecting a sound that comes from the object taken by said image taking means; and

directivity generating means for generating a sound directivity signal with which said sound collecting means collects the sound coming from the direction determined by said determining means.

2. The microphone apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein;

said pointing means is composed of a light transmitting member, and

said pointing means is disposed on a display surface of said displaying means.

3. The microphone apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein;

said determining means is configured to determine the direction of the object in accordance with information of angle of view obtained by said image taking means and a command position obtained by said pointing means.

4. The microphone apparatus as set forth in claim 1, wherein;

said directivity generating means has variably delay means for delaying outputs of the plurality of microphone units of said sound collecting means; and

calculating means for adding outputs of said variably delay means, and wherein;

delay amounts of said variably delay means are varied, and the level of the output of said calculating means is maximized in the direction determined by said determining means.

5. The microphone apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

level controlling means for controlling the level of the sound directivity signal extracted by said directivity generating means so as to control the sound directivity signal to be a predetermined level and output the controlled sound directivity signal.

6. A reproducing apparatus, comprising:

sound reproducing means for reproducing a plurality of audio signals that is collected by a plurality of microphone units of sound collecting means and recorded to sound recording means;

displaying means for reproducing and displaying a picture that is imaged by image taking means and recorded by picture recording means;

pointing means for pointing a desired position of the picture displayed by said displaying means;

determining means for determining the direction of an object of the imaged picture in accordance with the position pointed by said pointing means; and

directivity generating means for generating a sound directivity signal of the sound reproduced by said sound reproducing means in the direction determined by said determining means.

7. The reproducing apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein;

said pointing means is composed of a light transmitting member, and said pointing means is disposed on a display surface of said displaying means.

8. The reproducing apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein;

said determining means is configured to determine the direction of an object in accordance with information of angle of view pre-recorded in the picture that is recorded and a command position obtained by said pointing means.

9. The reproducing apparatus as set forth in claim 6, wherein;

said directivity generating means has

variably delay means for delaying the plurality of audio signals; and

calculating means for adding outputs of said variably delay means, and wherein;

delay amounts of said variably delay means are varied, and the level of the output of said calculating means is maximized in the direction determined by said determining means.

10. The reproducing apparatus as set forth in claim 6, further comprising:

level controlling means for controlling the level of the sound directivity signal extracted by said directivity generating means so as to control the sound directivity signal to be a predetermined level and output the controlled sound directivity signal.

11. An image taking apparatus, comprising:

image taking means having at least an image pickup device and a image-taking optical system;

displaying means for displaying a picture taken by said image taking means; and

sound collecting means having a microphone unit disposed on the rear surface side of a picture display surface of said displaying means, wherein;

said displaying means is rotatable along with said sound collecting means.

12. The image taking apparatus as set forth in claim 11, wherein;

said sound collecting means has variably delay means for delaying outputs of a plurality of microphone units; and

calculating means for adding outputs of said variably delay means, and wherein;

an output of said calculating means causes the delay amount delayed by said variably delay means to vary in accordance with position information obtained from said detecting means in a rotatable range of said displaying means so as to vary a sound collecting characteristic.

13. The image taking apparatus as set forth in claim 11, wherein;

said sound collecting means has a stereo characteristic.

14. The image taking apparatus as set forth in claim 13, wherein;

said sound collecting means has variably delay means for delaying outputs of a plurality of microphone units; and

calculating means for adding outputs of said variably delay means, and wherein;

an output of said calculating means causes the delay amount delayed by said variably delay means to vary in accordance with position information obtained from said detecting means in a rotatable range of said displaying means so as to vary a sound collecting characteristic.