I've received a number of emails asking about my VR setup since posting the HS User Profile. Spent a little time today making some recordings that along with this description, will hopefully demonstrate the system.
Audio Description: I'm using Russound A-Bus keypads to power in-wall speakers in most rooms of the house, with 70v Bose speakers delivering mono sound to the garage, laundy room and outside areas. Sources (Audiotron, CD Changer, Radio, TV) are fed into the inputs of a Biamp SPM723 preamp. The three outputs are distributed to 1-House, 2-Garage & Laundry, 3-Outside areas.
The house & garage/laundry can listen to any of the available sources and the outside areas can play what's playing in one of the previous zones. The biamp SPM723 provides what's basically a 7-source (I'm only using 4), 2/3-zone distributed audio system. The SPM723 also has 2 mic level inputs... the TTS output of the HS server is connected to one, and the ouTput of a phone interface (Gentner AP10) is connected to the other. The neat benefit of this is that when TTS speaks, the background music is automatically reduced to a low volume and then slowly ramps back up to the previous volume once the TTS announcement is complete. If the phone interface is used which created a whole-house "speaker phone", the SPM723 is programmed to cut the background music all the way off until the phone call is complete.
The Biamp SPM723 is controlled via RS-232 and is very configurable... TTS announcements can be selected to play in any of the 3 zones in any combination (normally TTS does not play outside).
VR Description: Crown MB3 mics are installed in the walls of most rooms plus the garage and laundry and connect back to a Gentner AP800 mic mixer which is designed for teleconference use. This is a very capable mixer that is controlled via RS-232 and provides sophisticated mic gating, noise filters, EQ, and echo cancellation as well as a matrix mixer.
The mics are connected to the mic inputs and the output of the whole-house audio system as well as the television are connected to two of the inputs. One output of the mixer is connected to the line in on the sound card of the HS server for VR. The AP800 also has logic outputs that register which microphone is gated "on". These outputs are conncted to the inputs on an Applied Digital SECU16i which in turn can let HS know which mic is on, or more importantly... which room you are speaking from!
Back to the whole-house & television audio that are connected to the inputs. With these connected to the AP800, echo cancellation can be configured that effectivly removes these sources from reaching the sound card input. This helps greatly with two things:
Now that HS knows which room you are speaking from, VR commands can be simplified. Example: What used to be "Bedroom fan on", can now be "fan on", etc. But, during conversation with VR & TTS (again, with speakers & mics in most rooms), the TTS announcements would gate on another mic, most likely not in the room where you are and confuse the system sometime making it think you are in a different room.
Having the echo cancellation feature of the AP800 remove TTS from the VR input solves this problem nicely.
Results: OK, enough jabbering... show me!
I made a couple recording that demonstrate some of what's stated above. The recordings were taken from my HS server's line in, which is exactly what VR "hears".
The first recording is with echo cancellation turned off. You'll notice that you can easily hear the backgroud music as well as the TTS announcements. Remember that once HS picks up my attention phrase and speaks the confirmation "Yes Paul", the background music will be lowered during the conversation by the SPM723 preamp and then ramps back up at the end once TTS completes (this is not echo cancellation at work).
Click here to listen to an MP3 with Echo Cancellation OFF
The second recording is with echo cancellation turned on and attempting to remove much of the background music and TTS. You'll see that it reduces the music by at least half, and the TTS announcements are almost completely gone!
CLick here to listen to an MP3 with Echo Cancellation ON
I wasn't able to attach the recordings to the post, so hoping that the links above will take you to .mps's that are on my server. TTS responses seem a little slower than normal, probably becasue of the recording app sucking CPU on my lowly 1Ghz server.
My next task is too connect a weatherproof microphone outside which can be used as an intercom from the front gate, to record outside audio when the alarm is triggered and also to cancel outside noise from the inside mics. I live in a mild climate so the house doesn't have any insulation and doors/windows are often open. With this in mind, noises from outside like large trucks, barking dogs, etc are picked up by the inside mics and can interfere with VR (don't know why, but seems like in the middle of a VR command, the neighbors dog will always bark!)
Cheers,
Paul
Audio Description: I'm using Russound A-Bus keypads to power in-wall speakers in most rooms of the house, with 70v Bose speakers delivering mono sound to the garage, laundy room and outside areas. Sources (Audiotron, CD Changer, Radio, TV) are fed into the inputs of a Biamp SPM723 preamp. The three outputs are distributed to 1-House, 2-Garage & Laundry, 3-Outside areas.
The house & garage/laundry can listen to any of the available sources and the outside areas can play what's playing in one of the previous zones. The biamp SPM723 provides what's basically a 7-source (I'm only using 4), 2/3-zone distributed audio system. The SPM723 also has 2 mic level inputs... the TTS output of the HS server is connected to one, and the ouTput of a phone interface (Gentner AP10) is connected to the other. The neat benefit of this is that when TTS speaks, the background music is automatically reduced to a low volume and then slowly ramps back up to the previous volume once the TTS announcement is complete. If the phone interface is used which created a whole-house "speaker phone", the SPM723 is programmed to cut the background music all the way off until the phone call is complete.
The Biamp SPM723 is controlled via RS-232 and is very configurable... TTS announcements can be selected to play in any of the 3 zones in any combination (normally TTS does not play outside).
VR Description: Crown MB3 mics are installed in the walls of most rooms plus the garage and laundry and connect back to a Gentner AP800 mic mixer which is designed for teleconference use. This is a very capable mixer that is controlled via RS-232 and provides sophisticated mic gating, noise filters, EQ, and echo cancellation as well as a matrix mixer.
The mics are connected to the mic inputs and the output of the whole-house audio system as well as the television are connected to two of the inputs. One output of the mixer is connected to the line in on the sound card of the HS server for VR. The AP800 also has logic outputs that register which microphone is gated "on". These outputs are conncted to the inputs on an Applied Digital SECU16i which in turn can let HS know which mic is on, or more importantly... which room you are speaking from!
Back to the whole-house & television audio that are connected to the inputs. With these connected to the AP800, echo cancellation can be configured that effectivly removes these sources from reaching the sound card input. This helps greatly with two things:
- Reduces the amount of sound that reaches VR by cancelling the TV or background music... only your voice is heard!
- Eliminates VR from hearing the TTS announcements back in the mics.
Now that HS knows which room you are speaking from, VR commands can be simplified. Example: What used to be "Bedroom fan on", can now be "fan on", etc. But, during conversation with VR & TTS (again, with speakers & mics in most rooms), the TTS announcements would gate on another mic, most likely not in the room where you are and confuse the system sometime making it think you are in a different room.
Having the echo cancellation feature of the AP800 remove TTS from the VR input solves this problem nicely.
Results: OK, enough jabbering... show me!
I made a couple recording that demonstrate some of what's stated above. The recordings were taken from my HS server's line in, which is exactly what VR "hears".
The first recording is with echo cancellation turned off. You'll notice that you can easily hear the backgroud music as well as the TTS announcements. Remember that once HS picks up my attention phrase and speaks the confirmation "Yes Paul", the background music will be lowered during the conversation by the SPM723 preamp and then ramps back up at the end once TTS completes (this is not echo cancellation at work).
Click here to listen to an MP3 with Echo Cancellation OFF
The second recording is with echo cancellation turned on and attempting to remove much of the background music and TTS. You'll see that it reduces the music by at least half, and the TTS announcements are almost completely gone!
CLick here to listen to an MP3 with Echo Cancellation ON
I wasn't able to attach the recordings to the post, so hoping that the links above will take you to .mps's that are on my server. TTS responses seem a little slower than normal, probably becasue of the recording app sucking CPU on my lowly 1Ghz server.
My next task is too connect a weatherproof microphone outside which can be used as an intercom from the front gate, to record outside audio when the alarm is triggered and also to cancel outside noise from the inside mics. I live in a mild climate so the house doesn't have any insulation and doors/windows are often open. With this in mind, noises from outside like large trucks, barking dogs, etc are picked up by the inside mics and can interfere with VR (don't know why, but seems like in the middle of a VR command, the neighbors dog will always bark!)
Cheers,
Paul
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