Enables superior audio clarity for both the “near-end” user and “far-end” call recipient
SRS Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:SRSL), the industry leader in surround sound, audio, and voice technologies, and CSR (LSE: CSR), the technology and market leader in the Bluetooth industry and a worldwide provider of wireless connectivity solutions, announced today that their jointly developed PureSpeech Bluetooth audio enhancement solution is expected to reach worldwide deployment by the end of Q1, 2009.
In September 2008, SRS Labs and CSR entered into a joint engineering and marketing partnership through CSR’s eXtension Partner Program to create PureSpeech. This ground breaking new product offers CE and IT manufacturers a comprehensive Bluetooth audio solution — bringing together the complementary expertise of the world’s number one supplier of Bluetooth headset technology and the electronic industry’s leader in audio processing and optimization.
PureSpeech delivers noticeable improvements to the audio clarity of Bluetooth mono headsets by combining SRS Labs’ VIP+™ technology, which improves audio quality at the near end (what you, as the caller, hears), with CSR’s Clear Voice Capture (CVC) noise reduction technology, which improves audio quality at the far end (what the other person, the recipient, hears). PureSpeech will be available as an option on CSR’s DSP-based BlueCore Multimedia Bluetooth silicon.
“The demand for bringing clarity and an even higher audio quality to Bluetooth communications has recently become paramount given the number of devices that are Bluetooth capable and the incredible demand for wireless, hands-free communication worldwide,” said Alan Kraemer, Chief Technology Officer, SRS Labs. “Working with CSR, the industry leader in Bluetooth headset technology, SRS is now able to effectively bring the same kind of audio advances to the wireless world that we have brought to HDTVs, PCs, portable media and automotive sound.”
PureSpeech is a complete audio solution for manufacturers of Bluetooth devices that delivers an important competitive advantage by significantly improving sound clarity and tonal quality for both participants in a mobile phone call, even if one party does not have a PureSpeech-enabled headset/device. SRS VIP+ voice intelligibility processing technology ensures the user can hear the call even in a noisy environment, by dynamically maximizing speech intelligibility through selective formant enhancement. At the same time, CSR’s CVC software provides highly efficient removal of noise around the speaker using a Bluetooth headset– benefiting someone listening to the caller at the far end.
Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President of CSR’s Audio Connectivity Business Unit commented “Last September, CSR and SRS partnered to develop PureSpeech through CSR’s eXtension Partner Program, and I am excited to see our incredible progress in such a short period of time. PureSpeech is a revolutionary product that will significantly improve the overall audio quality of both the sent and received audio of any Bluetooth headset using CSR’s solution.”
Since 2006, SRS has provided its WOW HD™ stereo enhancement technology to CSR’s eXtension Partner Program of enhancements to the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) on its BlueCore5 Multimedia IC. CSR’s Multimedia platform is the only Bluetooth platform available which can support such third party audio enhancement software.
