(outdated thread) Better control of XBMC with 0.821

[jitterjames]

A demo of the latest version of VoxCommando (0.821) controlling XBMC  (in english)

[jitterjames]

I had to snip out some bits of audio because Youtube and WGM were muting my sound based on some stupid copyright claim.

[jitterjames]

see the attached xml file for the commands used in the video, and a few more...

you can replace your voicecommands.xml with this file if you want, or you can drag this file onto your tree edit window to import and merge it.

[Native]

..sorta works for me, using your xml commands, vox hears the correct phrase, and for basic commands it executes the action, but for "play movie" "find movie" "play artist" or song or anything of that nature, whilst the phrase is detected, nothing happens on xbmc. Vox log says something about the request timing out.

On a side note, i noticed that your video implies you'll begin charging for VC soon?

[jitterjames]

..sorta works for me, using your xml commands, vox hears the correct phrase, and for basic commands it executes the action, but for "play movie" "find movie" "play artist" or song or anything of that nature, whilst the phrase is detected, nothing happens on xbmc. Vox log says something about the request timing out.

On a side note, i noticed that your video implies you'll begin charging for VC soon?

A couple of things.

- First you have to make sure that you have enabled the xbmc web server and got the settings matched in XBMC and VoxCommando Options.  If you are running xbmc on the same machien you can leave the ip address as 127.0.0.1 otherwise you need to enter the IP.  If basic commands are working for you then I guess you probably have that set up correctly.

- You need to use GenXML to create data for your media libraries.  Make  sure XMBC is running and then click GenXML in VoxCommando, and click on all the XBMC buttons.  If Vox is able to contract XBMC correctly then the text next to the button should change from "ready" to "found ###" indicating how many items you have for that category.

Then you need to restart VoxCommando to reload the data.

If that doesn't work then post back here and we'll try to figure it out.

edit: yes, I think I'll start charging soon, but not a huge amount.  Maybe $30.  I will probably start with an honour system, and just suggest people make a donation of that amount.  I don't really want to deal with registration codes etc. at this point.

[jitterjames]

also better make sure you have the latest.  See the attached file.

[Native]

..the web-server seems to be working for the simple stuff, all the settings are correct at least.
The generating of the xmls went all ok after i'd set the webserver running, and according to the log Vox loads them up ok.
Restarted plenty of time, mainly because xbmc stops responding quite often when i minimise it for too long, also it stop responding to keyboard presses after VC has interacted with it sometimes too.
Here's a copy of the log.. some strange looking stuff i noticed is the "play artist XXXX = do command "tvshow", buy i'll let you figure it out

[jitterjames]

before I try to figure this out can you please use version 0.821 that I attached in my previous post.  The log indicates that you are using 0.82.  Is that correct?

[jitterjames]

also, please make sure that you don't have "create artist grammar" or "create album grammar" checked in the VC XBMC options tab.

EDIT: after looking at your log file I think this may be the problem.

[jitterjames]

I'm not sure if it matters but this is the version of XBMC that I'm using:

http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/win32/xbmc-r33778-Dharma_beta2.exe

[Native]

Will give it a try tomorrow, past my bedtime currently   

[Native]

That nailed it, either the unchecking grammar options or the new .exe.  Thanks mucho 
Now i just have to buy a real microphone (as opposed to the £3.95 one i have)

[jitterjames]

that's always a challenge.  I have about 5 different mics that I use and they all work reasonably well, but none is perfect.  For me the ultimate solution would be something small and comfortable like a bluetooth mic, but with quality approaching that of a noise cancelling wired headset.

Depending on the quality of your inputs, many people get better results with a USB microphone.  The ps3eye is pretty good as an option because it is a cheap array microphone.  It is not fantastic, but it is what I used for the demo.  You will notice, that my voice sound pretty quiet in the video.  Also, I have to unplug it every couple of days to reinitialize it for some reason.

My wireless Plantronics 995 wireless headset is the best quality mobile solution that I own, but it is a big headset that covers my ears so it's not really practical in most situations... and it's not very comfortable.

I had really high hopes for the Plantronics CS-55 but it turned out to be totally useless with terrible sound quality. I think maybe I got a lemon, but it was really expensive and only available by mail order so I sent it back and moved on...

I'm sure you've already noticed it, but here's an area for mics: http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?board=8.0

[Native]

The Amazon reviews of the logitech desktop usb mic are very positive, and it's not a lot of money to waste on trying, so i think i may give that one a whirl. Cheaper than the voicetracker at any rate. Ideally tho', i think we'd all like wireless.

With regards to controlling xbmc, would it be possible to search/play tv show episode by name and/or number, for example "play Glee season 2 episode 1"  or "play Glee S02E01", or maybe some kind of first episode marked as unwatched. "play Glee first unwatched" or "play Glee new episode" . 
 On the same note, how would i go about making custom xbmc commands, the activate window stuff i see in the built list, or is that your job? I actually know nothing about the coding under the hood of xbmc, so really, i'm being very optimistic that i even could create anything, but i'm big on trial and error before i totally give up.
Great work you do, keep on keeping on

[jitterjames]

The Amazon reviews of the logitech desktop usb mic are very positive, and it's not a lot of money to waste on trying, so i think i may give that one a whirl. Cheaper than the voicetracker at any rate. Ideally tho', i think we'd all like wireless.

the logitech desktop usb mic will probably work very well if you are within 3/4 feet of it and you have a quiet environment.  If you want to be able to play loud music and watch movies etc. then you'll probably need to be able to press a button to:
--  mute  -- switch vox on  -- issue a command   -- and then automatically switch vox off and restore volume.
If you have a remote you can do this by using eventGhost.
If you get it, let us know what you think.

With regards to controlling xbmc, would it be possible to search/play tv show episode by name and/or number, for example "play Glee season 2 episode 1"  or "play Glee S02E01", or maybe some kind of first episode marked as unwatched. "play Glee first unwatched" or "play Glee new episode" . 
 On the same note, how would i go about making custom xbmc commands, the activate window stuff i see in the built list, or is that your job? I actually know nothing about the coding under the hood of xbmc, so really, i'm being very optimistic that i even could create anything, but i'm big on trial and error before i totally give up.
Great work you do, keep on keeping on

technicallly yes, but it's tricky, and probably not that practical since you may not know which episode you want to watch anyway.  Auto playing the next unwatched episode is of interest to me though, and I will try to figure it out.  I am also not an expert with XBMC.  I would love to get someone onboard that knew XBMC inside and out.

As for modifying / making your own commands.  That's really the main concept behind VoxCommando!  For starters, you can make a copy of your whole VC folder so that you can experiment without having to worry about killing a good setup.

Then click Edit on the main interface and poke around.  The easiest thing you can do is simply change the phrases in the command tree to use words that you want for the existing commands, and to delete commands that you know you will never use.  If you screw up, just restore your backed up folder, or even just your voicecommands.xml file.

I need to start a new series of tutorials that are more up to date, but you can get an idea by watching the old ones:
http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=45.0

also, I've started working on the wiki which details the various elements of the command tree etc... It's not finished by any means but it's a good starting point.

http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=How_to_use_VoxCommando