xbmc linux and ipod

[jitterjames]

Hey how are you doing. I was wondering if your program was going to be developed to work in linux at any time? or work via WINE thru linux?

I saw some of the videos and it looks amazing and I am highly interested but I use ubuntu for my HTPC OS.  I was reading a thread where you put

"While VoxCommando is not cross platform, (it runs on windows 7 or vista, 32 or 64 bit) it connects to xbmc through a web interface the machine running xbmc can be on any platform."

so do I have to have two machines running at the same time in the same room. one for vox commando and the other for my htpc?

Also is iphone app being worked on to control it thru the iphone mic?

thanks and the program looks incredible.

Hi ****,

I am not planning on making a linux version.  I don't know much about WINE, though I have heard of it.  The program is written in .NET and relies on the windows built in speech recognition engine, so it is doubtful that I would be able to port it to another OS.  As it is anyway I have my hand full with all the things I want to implement, and the documentation that doesn't exist yet etc.  I don't have much free time at the moment either.

You don't have to have 2 pcs.  You can run both voxCommando and XBMC on the same machine or on two different machines.  VoxCommando has to be running on Windows7 or Vista.  It communicates with xbmc through http, but that can all happen on the same machine if you want.  My point was that you could keep your linux box as the http if you wanted to control it from a windows machine.

There is no iPod app, and I don't even have a Mac so I could not develop one.  However, if you have voxCommando running on a windows machine, you can still use your ipod as the microphone.  You are sending the sound to the PC and vox is doing the processing.  Actually I think that Dragon NatSpeak for iPod does something similar, where they upload your sound file to their server and then send back the text.

If your iPod is on the same LAN as your PC on wifi you can use it as a microphone with PocketAudio http://www.senstic.com/iphone/pocketaudio/pocketaudio.aspx.

Or you can upload wav files to your pc running VoxCommando via ftp.  With ipod or iphone you can do this with recordpad, which is was I used in the 2nd demo on this page http://www.voxcommando.com/videos.asp Vox can be set up to monitor a folder and when it detects a new wav files it opens it, processes the speech and then deletes the wav.

[rflores2323]

thank you for the reply.  Do you know if this would work in a virtual box running windows 7? 

Also what type of microphone do you recommend? A bluetooth mic like this?

http://www.emicrophones.com/p-1164-revolabs-xtag-wireless-microphone.aspx

Also it would be a cool function if the program could know that you entered the room by receiving your bluetooth signal and then start up automatically with an intro  that the user programmed. or even saying hello, date, and current weather status etc..

[jitterjames]

I strongly recommend that you NOT use bluetooth!  You will ultimately throw either the headset or the computer out the window if you try to do that.  Bluetooth's frequency range and compression are not suitable for speech recognition using the windows engine.  You could achieve limited functionality if you had a small command set of phrases, that really sounded different from one another, but I don't think it's worth the trouble.


Some users have reported slightly better success using dragon, but still not great, and I am not planning on switching engines.

If you want a wireless headset, there are options.  Take a look in the microphone section of this forum.

there is also the ipod/iphone option.  There is a bit of lag time but the results are good.

(note that there are some "hybrid" bluetooth headsets that may offer better results when operating in non-bluetooth mode but I haven't tested any myself)

[jitterjames]

I just looked at the link you posted.  Ya, I don't think that microphone is Bluetooth.

I have had my eye on that one for a while.  It looks like it could be very good, as long as you don't have a noisy environment.  If you do, or if you want to me able to listen to music watch movies etc, then you either need a mechanism to create a quiet enviroment temporarily (i.e.. a one button remote solution) or you need a noise cancelling headset where the mic is close to your mouth.  These mics in theory should sample whats coming in to the back side (opposite of mouth side) of the mic and "remove" it from the mouth side signal...

problem with those mics is they are expensive, and being mail order only, I don't know how easy to return if they don't work.

If you try something and it works (or not) please post your experiences to the microphone section of the forum.

[jitterjames]

thank you for the reply.  Do you know if this would work in a virtual box running windows 7?  

I don't know, but I don't see why not, since it works with Windows 7.  Did you ever try it?  The only advice that I can offer on this is that VoxCommando will only use the audio input which is set as default.  I assume this works the same way on a virtual box.

[Edit: update on successfully running VC on a Linux machine via virtual box: see http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=710.msg5353#msg5353 - nime5ter]