Wow is good VR hard...

[nadeaup]

I have an AP800 with 1 PZM-11. I have planned to get the 1 mic to work consistently in one room. Then I planned to add more mics.. I have played with the AP800 configuration and mic placement for about 20 hours over a 1 month time frame and can not obtain good consistent functionality. Maybe my expecations are just too high - I do not want false "Listening" and I expect it to respond correctly to the spoken command 95% od the time.

Any suggestions on which AP800 items are the MOST important to get right?

Is it worth while for someone to upload there AP800 config file as a starting point?

Or do I just need to continue fighting through it?

[pkoslow]

Patrick,

Room acoustics can play a big role in how well VR works. When I moved into a house with wood floors and big walls of glass windows, it started a whole new learning process to achieve good VR again.

If your test room is "live" meaning that it can echo because of sparse furnishings and refelctive surfaces, this may be a big part of the problem.

I doubt that it will be beneficial to share AP800 configs because these settings will vary greatly for each installation (I've had to basically start over each time I've moved).

Have you recorded the output from your microphone to listen to what the PC is actually hearing? Until you do this (or hook up headphones to listen real-time) you really can't be sure what the quality of the output is. To me hearing this is crucial to dialing in the setting properly for optimum results.

Have you done proper training for VR and ensured that the feature to adaptively learn during use is DISABLED in the VR control panel?

To clarify... I don't think your expectations are out of line using this equipment. I've shortened my attention phrase to simply "computer" and only get 2-3 false attentions a year. I guestimate my VR recognition rate is around 90%... seems that I may need to repeat 1 out of 10 commands. Most often if a command isn't understood, it's due to noise in another room of the house.

Cheers,
Paul

[nadeaup]

[QUOTE=pkoslow]Patrick,

"wood floors and big walls of glass windows" -- that's my room with a 20 foot ceiling too...

It sounds good to me via Windows Sound Recorder.

"Have you done proper training for VR and ensured that the feature to adaptively learn during use is DISABLED in the VR control panel?"
Yes I have done lot's of training! and adaptive learnig is disabled..

The only other thing I noticed that seemed wuird is if I watch the mic level control in windows for the mic, the level moves all over the place while a talk and then sets itself to nearly off when I'm done speaking.. Is that noraml?

[Rupp]

The only other thing I noticed that seemed wuird is if I watch the mic level control in windows for the mic, the level moves all over the place while a talk and then sets itself to nearly off when I'm done speaking.. Is that noraml?

This is the automatic gain that Microsoft controls. This has caused many users grief. The only solution I've seen offered is to use the line in as the mic port and make the adjustments in all the software to use the line in port rather than the mic port.

[zap]

This is the automatic gain that Microsoft controls. This has caused many users grief. The only solution I've seen offered is to use the line in as the mic port and make the adjustments in all the software to use the line in port rather than the mic port.

Hmm---- I use line level input and could have sworn that the movement of the mic level meter was cause by the loudness or softness of your voice.

-Zap

[Rupp]

This problem is caused by AGC (Automatic Gain Control) in the operating system. If your Mic gain is too high the XP will adjust it downward while setting up your Mic. I would suggest using the Configure Microphone option on the speech recognition tab to reset your Mic input and speak softly. If this doesn't help I would delete the VR profile and train it again speaking softly. All of this is stored in the VR profile so you need to start with a new profile if your changing settings.

Madcodger was having this same problem and his microphone autogain kept being reset from about the 3rd bar up on the volume level (out of 8) down to the very bottom. He switched to the line level input and it solved his adjustment problem.

[rogerous]

I don't have a very sophisticated setup but was also having a hard time to get good VR even with lots of voice training. I use VR in my office with a USB microphone. I also use HSPhone which I find more convenient(e.g. phones everywhere).

I decided to start from scratch with a new voice profile. When you setup a new voice profile at some point it will tell you to "read in a natural and even tone". It will also show a "sample" button to hear an example. I listened to this voice sample and found that the voice speed was slower than what I was training with.

This time I spoke slower(almost not natural) and with only one training session the VR is now what I expected it to be...very reliable. Funny thing my wife is also using VR with the same profile and it works great for her too.

Good luck with your setup.

[nadeaup]

I will try the line-in.. Hopefully that works....

On the topic of profiles. Is there a way to have homeseer auto-magicly switch profiles based on the attenion command given? It would be great of MS Speech supported different profiles based on the attention phrase spoken.

Any one have any ideas what impact Vista will have on Speech and Homeseer?

[pkoslow]

Is there a way to have homeseer auto-magicly switch profiles based on the attenion command given? It would be great of MS Speech supported different profiles based on the attention phrase spoken.

Patrick,

I used to do this successfully in HS1.7. My girlfried and I each used different attention phrases which would load up the correct profile. The ignore phrase would always switch back to hers by default because she had difficulty getting her attention phrase to be recognized when in my profile, but my attention phrase would work while in hers to initiate the swap.

This was all done with some scripts using the "setspeaker" command, but stopped working with the upgrade to HS2 and the separate speaker app which didn't support this command anymore.

It was requested to add this back (which I think has been done now)? Diane was really starting to use VR about the time I made the switch and was upset when she couldn't use it any longer. Now that she hasn't used VR in over 6 months, I'll have a difficult time weaning her back onto it which is why I haven't tried to implement this again.

To further reinforce the swap to "line in" for you're mic... I recommend this too!

Cheers,
Paul

[nadeaup]

Hmmm.. Can you also change the voice used? It would be cool for one person to give an attention phrase "Sarah" which swithes to VR profile "A" and changes the speech engine to the "Audrey" voice. Then someone else uses the attention phrase "Mike" which switches to VR profile "B" and the changes the spekaing voice to a male voice..

Can that be done?

[pkoslow]

I think there is a command called "setspeaker" or "setvoice" that does this. I used to use it in HS1.7, but think there may be problems with it in HS2 and the speaker app.

Check the help file or the message board for the commands mentioned above and you should find some info.

Cheers,
Paul