Awesome! thanks for looking into this!

One idea too is to use a fork of the official xbmc remote with your mic button feature, another user on the xbmc forums is working on a project like this too, but thought I would bring it to your attention as well.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=134659

I know this has been discussed, but what are the chances of getting an app that uses google's voice recognition API to send just commands back to a voxcommando server?

It is astonishingly accurate, and just sending the command back to vc seems like it would be a small and simple app.

Just an idea

Slightly unrelated, but I wanted to toss this out there...

Is there a command for VC that will simply 'wake' xbmc out of the screen saver?  Many times using VC, I am waking xbmc from a 'screen-off' state. Upon resuming the screensaver is still running (just the dimmed screen to be precise) but xbmc will still  accept commands and respond as expected, except the screen is still dimmed.  I remedy this by just toggling 'fullscreen' on and off, which fixes the issue at the time.

Basically I'm just wondering if there is a 'wake xbmc' command I could send automatically after initiating the "start listening" command?

Thanks, and not trying to hi-jack this thread!

This sounds like an awesome idea, but just wanted to note ahead of time that, if possible, it would be great to be able to choose what playback device the 'muting' is actually taking place on instead of the just the default device.  This would be important to me personally because my XBMC runs off a separate display from my main PC, and uses a separate sound card, but everything else is ran through some USB speakers for my computer it's self.

Just a thought!

Also, it is worth trying to re-install voxcommando from scratch if you are having unresolvable issues.  When I first started messing with the application, I was having a VERY strange issue with my standard aux mic's levels slowly dropping as I tried to use it (as in the bar that represents speech volume would decrease each time repeating the same command at the same volume). I simply removed the old install and tried with a new one and never saw the issue again, no idea what caused it.

And don't be hesitant to use the forum! If you are having a problem, there's a good chance that others are too, and having the question here will help everybody in the long run!

EDIT: It is worth noting that generating the XBMC payload is CRUCIAL for any decent functionality, be sure that isn't a step you overlooked!

Quote from: jitterjames on September 12, 2011, 12:33:28 PM
If you are using the same system, with the same microphone, and the same configuration files, and all you did was copy to a new folder and udate to a later version, then the recognition should be exactly the same.

Something else must be different, other than the location.  What do you mean by location?  Folder?  You are still using it on the same computer with the same user account etc.?

I'm actually not sure if they are the same config files or not.. That was actually one of the reasons I was posting, I wasn't sure what files other than options.xml and voicecommands.xml I could copy over to the new install without messing something up (I wasnt even too sure those files would work okay).

And by location I just meant the install location of voxcommando it'self.. my original install is at C:\VOX and the new one was just C:\VOX2

Hey JJames thanks for the updates!  I was playing around with the new version, installed it in a separate location and just made a copy of my commands, but the newer one doesnt seem to recognize me speach nearly as well as 0.892 (the on I was on) does.  Are there some additional files created by the previous version that improves recognition that I could copy over? Obviously didn't just want to start replacing files all willy-nilly.. 

Quote from: Kalle on September 08, 2011, 03:17:26 AM
Do you have tried with music or other noises (movie on TV) in backround? When this works good with VC, boundary mic's are an affordable solution.
I've tried many microphones (SAMSON USB-GOmic, Andrea Superbeam Array ...) all works fine with a quiet backround even from a distance, but when music or movie playing in backround ) also when you use the "prefix mode", they pick all up - you can forget this mic's, the confidence for VoxCommando is to bad.

Kalle

This particular mic is supposedly "tailored for response from vocal frequencies" (sounds more like marketing buzz words to me) and it behaves moderately well while playing music or videos, but I do certainly have to speak over the sound to get a decent response when things are a little louder.  I would suppose living in an apartment help because my neighbors complain when I turn anything up too loud.. But leaning back towards the mic on the wall and speaking in to it almost always works just fine. 

Not quite the advantages the amulet has, but works better than I was expecting it to originally.

I just wanted to share my experience using the 'CAD Audio U7 USB boundary microphone' with voxcommando.

The microphone retails for about $70 depending on where you get it from of course, but I happen to get very lucky and found one new on eBay for $26.00 shipped.  I was VERY close to buying an amulet remote, but I figured for the price I would give this a shot.



Upon plugging the microphone in, Windows 7 detected and installed everything on it's own which is always a great relief.  It came with a decent length wire (10') but for my specific needs I bought a 30' USB repeater wire (about $13) to run it to a more convenient place. The microphone it's self is pretty sensitive, as it is designed to be placed on a table during meeting, it will pick-up sound from basically any direction including the vibrations from whatever surface it is placed upon.  There are 'hang holes' (for the wall) on the back of the small pyramid along with a soft rubber grip across the entire bottom, overall the build quality is nothing less than excellent. I decided to give this a shot by hanging it on the wall directly behind my couch. While being behind be isn't the best placement, it does manage to pick up most of what I am saying.  Since I use my android phone to control XBMC otherwise, talking 'against' the screen like the phone was on speaker mode actually bounces my voice back behind me directly to the microphone which not only greatly increases accuracy, but also creates the illusion that my phone is handling the voice commands (this amused me more than it should have). One issue I have noticed is it will tend to pick up audio or conversations and treat them as commands when they are not, but I have remedied this by making the 'listen' command "Computer start listening" to avoid unintended triggers.  There are a few other commands I occasionally have issues with, but all of them can be remedied by tweaking voxcommando.

At the end of the day, I thought the strange little triangle on my wall would feel intrusive, but it now feels like it belongs where it is and it ACTUALLY GETS USED! I can't tell you how many times my hands were full or I was eating and didn't want to dirty-up my touch screen and this thing has performed fantastically.


PROS:
-Well priced (I got a very good deal, but honestly for the price this feels like a professional piece of equipment)
-Accurate
-Solid as a rock
-USB
-No additional drivers needed
-Omnidirectional
-PC/MAC compatibility (not too relevant here, but good to know)
-Low profile and sleek design

CONS:
-The little blue LED light is actually pretty bright and BLINKS while the microphone is listening. Fixed with a small piece of electrical tape.
-Sometimes a little sensitive and gives unintended results, but basically all can be fixed with software adjustments.

Hope this helps anybody looking into purchasing a microphone! Keep an eye on eBay for them, one can usually be scooped for about $40.

Quote from: jitterjames on September 02, 2011, 03:53:09 PM
I don't think the one Wanilton uploaded operates any differently from the one that comes with VC by default.  At least in terms of getting the album info, it is calling the same info from XBMC and using the same regex expression.

Did you try the alternate that I uploaded?

If you want to help figure it out you can try using the attached command.

It is very important to make sure to remove or disable the old command so that VC is running the new one.  If they both use the same phrase you don't know which one will execute.

Run the attached command until it produces the strange behaviour.  Then go look in your VC folder for AlbumResult.txt

send me that file, and make sure that you don't edit it in any way.  Do not open in notepad and then resave it!

thanks

Upon taking the time to actually look at the commands, yes I did notice Wanilton's commands are essentially the same as the ones included.. So as of right now I have no idea why they gave me success when the other wouldn't.  But upon testing it enough I did get it to replicate the issue I was originally having. Weird.

Actually upon trying your revised script, jitterj, everything is seeming to be working as expected (so far at least).  I did have a few hours where I could not get the TTS engine to respond to VC at all, but upon switching voices and messing with settings it seemed to work again.

I ran your debug script, but unfortunately it was not exhibiting the behavior that originally caused me concern.. Upon actually looking at the file it does indeed seem like what was being read to me, it was just reading off from the specified field (artist, album) onward. I've included the output file from that, but I will keep playing with it to see if I can get it to output a file while I'm having the issue.

Thanks for the help!

Quote from: jitterjames on September 02, 2011, 09:41:16 AM
please be more specific about "latest version".  Exactly what version of XBMC and VC are you using?

this is not normal behaviour.  It should be easy enough to fix, but I need to figure out what xbmc is giving you that is causing this.  Normally the regex command works only line by line but it sounds like maybe xbmc is giving your everything on one line.  If that is the case you can adjust your regex expression from

album:(.*)

to something like

album:(.*)<li>

but that would not work for me because <li> is on the next line and VC will only try to match line by line.

this is what XBMC returns to me:

Code Select Expand


<html>
<li>Filename:musicdb://3/622/41883.mp3
<li>PlayStatus:Playing
<li>SongNo:3
<li>Type:Audio
<li>Title:Feel a Little Better
<li>Track:4
<li>Artist:Third World
<li>Album:96 Degrees In The Shade
<li>Genre:Reggae
<li>Year:1977
<li>URL:D:\mp3\Third World\96 degrees in the shade\Third World - Feel a Little Better.mp3
<li>Lyrics:
<li>Bitrate:192
<li>Samplerate:44
<li>Thumb:special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/Music/0/0b6d515a.tbn
<li>Time:00:01
<li>Duration:03:51
<li>Percentage:0
<li>File size:5568640
<li>Changed:True
</html>


Sorry about that, knew I should have posted more version info but I was moments away from total narcolepsy when I managed to cobble that post together.

I am running XBMC Dharma 10.1, but to my surprise version 0.892 of VC (didnt realize it got some updates already)

I noticed playing with the command today, that after a "what artist" request, it did actually return just the artist name (something that surprised me, because it was the first time it had worked correctly) and I  promptly tried a different album (same artist) and seemed to work.  But this is where it gets strange, a few moments into the song, I request "what artist" again and it went back to reading off ALL the song's info again!  This befuddled me and I tried to see if it was perhaps because the music was fullscreen, or maybe in the 'music' library mode, but I really couldn't find a cause for the behavior change, still find it a little confusing.

The xml posted by Wanilton seems to be working pretty well for me, but whatever was causing what I was experiencing might still be an issue.. if there any log dump or anything I can supply you with to help improve the software I would be glad to!

Thanks for the help!

I have been playing around with the TTS ability of voxcommando, but when I try to call artist or album information, a whole lot more information is being read back than just the 'album' or 'artist'.  It seems as though the regex album:(.*) is what may be causing the issue, I would assume by not closing the called information properly, because the tts voice proceeds to read all the currently playing media's information back to me including file location and year, etc.

I am running the latest versions of everything.. does anybody have any word of wisdom for me?

Thanks!

Quote from: jitterjames on July 29, 2011, 10:48:40 AM
basically if it is a script you use RunScript() and if it is a plugin you use RunAddon()

to see what the addon is actually called and tell if it is a script or a plugin you can look in C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\addons

here you will see a folder called plugin.video.youtube

another very useful way to find out how to call addons is to first add it as a favourite in xbmc, and then look in your favourites.xml file found in C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata

Thanks for the tip! I figured the issue would be something along these lines. I have also just noticed another user posted some commands and one does happen to include a script to launch youtube (from what it seems to do in the code anyway, don't have access to my PC to test it)


<cmdType>XBMC.ExecBuiltin</cmdType>
<cmdString>ActivateWindow(10025,plugin://plugin.video.youtube/,return)</cmdString>


I'm going to give this a try as soon as I can.. And thanks for the advice on using the favorites.xml, I was wondering if that would work and would have probably been my eventual course of action.. I'm going to see if it will work to directly trigger the search keyboard screen as well.. Just curious does voxcommando have the ability to freely dictate text? Or is this something I would have to initiate externally through windows voice recognition or something?

Quote
Hi abrenoch,
welcome to VC Forum.
I am not a specialist for XBMC but you have a fault in your code (Execbuiltin). Correct code: XBMC.Execbuiltin  Runaddon(plugin.video.youtube)  

Kalle

Thanks for the response Kalle, that actually was not the code verbatim, but just typed from memory.. Good catch though! Hopefully the newer code I found will help!

Hi, just want to say voxcommando is AWESOME and the possibilities it presents are are great!

I am working on making some custom commands.. One of which I would like to be able to launch the 'youtube' xbmc plugin.  Launching it would be nice, but my ultimate goal is being able to search as well from a single command.  So far I havent even really had luck starting the youtube video plugin from a command, and am still learning the way XBMC handles different commands.

As far as launching a script/addon/plugin (do these each need to be handled differently BTW?) I had found a tip in another forum post recommending using:

XBMC.Execbuitin|RunScript(plugin.video.youtube)

With no real success.. I'm not even sure that is a valid plugin ID.. I have been trying other methods such as using "plugin://plugin.video.youtube" and a couple others, as well as using the full plugin path, but honestly there have been several different ways I have come across and none of them had been explained very well..

So would anybody have any tips or suggestions initiating the youtube plugin?  Is there any sort of tools I can use that help identify window/button IDs (aside from the XBMC wiki)?  I'm still a bit green to the process but would like to build/share some cool ideas I have been having!