Patent ID: 8103018

Claim:
A sound pickup apparatus comprising: a microphone array formed from an arrangement of a plurality of microphones; a signal distribution unit which inputs audio signals picked by the plurality of microphones and distributively outputs the audio signal; first and second sound pickup signal processing units which respectively generate first and second sound pickup beams exhibiting directivity toward a same area in accordance with the audio signals distributively output by the signal distribution unit; a level setting unit which sets, to a high level, sensitivity of the first sound pickup beam generated by the first sound pickup signal processing unit and setting, to a low level, sensitivity of the second sound pickup beam generated by the second sound pickup signal processing unit; first and second memories which respectively store the first and second sound pickup beams generated by the first and second sound pickup signal processing units; a sound determination unit which detects a signal level of the first sound pickup beam generated by the first sound pickup signal processing unit and a signal level of the second sound pickup beam generated by the second sound pickup signal processing unit, determines whether or not sound is present from the detected signal levels, and detects whether or not the first sound pickup beam exceeds an allowable input limit; a selector which reads the sound pickup beams stored in the first and second memory and selectively outputting any of the sound pickup beams; and a control unit which makes a setting such that, when the sound determination unit does not detect that the first sound pickup beam exceeds the allowable input limit, the high-sensitivity sound pickup beam stored in the first memory is output to the selector at timing at which a determination is changed from silence to presence of sound, and such that, when the sound determination unit detects that the first sound pickup beam exceeds the allowable input limit, the second sound pickup beam stored in the second memory is output to the selector at timing at which a determination is changed from silence to presence of sound.