Samson Technologies, the US distributor of the Zoom recorder, and audio software developer Immersive Media Research (IMR) today announced what they are calling “the missing link” for owners of Zoom’s H2 Handy Recorder. The Vortex Zoom Encoder has a streamlined program for sharing audio recordings, for both Mac OS X and Windows operating systems, and in multiple output formats.

Samson will be displaying the H2 and a other new products this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and next week in Anaheim at the NAMM show.

The Zoom H2 boasts four built-in microphones, and captures 360-degree sound into two stereo WAV files. The new Vortex Zoom Encoder converts H2 dual-stereo recordings into standard formats for sharing and use in familiar programs, portable media devices, and home theater systems.

Vortex Zoom Encoder runs on Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista. The encoder 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.

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.
• Binaural WAV employs IMR’s proprietary ImmersiveStereoâ„¢ 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.
• 5.1 WAV is a six-channel, 44.1kHz interleaved WAV file. Users can drop these files into the free Fraunhofer MP3 Surround Encoder (www.mp3surround.com). 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.