Topic: House Band -- Amazon Echo integration is available (Read 288566 times)

JimH · « **Reply #200 on:** November 13, 2016, 08:04:53 am »

From above:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,102709.msg748363.html#msg748363

sarkonovich · « **Reply #201 on:** November 13, 2016, 11:29:44 am »

@renerene

Yes, HouseBand is only available in the US store. I think that non-US users have the US store available to them if they set their language preference to "English (United States)"....but I'm not 100% sure about that.

There are plans for releasing it to non-US users, but this is probably a few months off.

Steve

nojazz · « **Reply #202 on:** November 16, 2016, 02:58:29 pm »

For integrating Amazon Echo and JRiver MC through the House Band skill, I have a question about which Alexa voice commands to use. For me, the hardware integration between Amazon Echo and JRiver MC20 worked very easily. My problem is I can never tell if music is streaming from my JRiver MC library (high definition music), or from Amazon Prime (low definition music). For example, if I say "Alexa Launch House Band", and the "Alexa What Do I Have By Steely Dan?" to get an accurate list of the albums I have by Steely Dan on JRiver MC20. But then when I select, for example, the album Katy Lied, Alexa switches over (without notice) to play Katy Lied from Amazon Prime. In addition to being low res quality, this album is not available on Amazon Prime, so it just plays the 10 second sampler version of each song. It would be nice to a) know how to select among the albums available on my JRiver MC, and b) confirm somehow that music I am listening to is actually coming from JRiver MC20. Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #203 on:** November 16, 2016, 05:48:39 pm »

@nojazz. Hmmm....that's interesting. After HouseBand responds, "What should I play"...and the blue light should remain on...you should be able to say, "Play the album Katy Lied" and get that from your MC20 library. My skill has no way to access Amazon Prime. So, the only way this could be happening is if for some reason you are dropping out of the skill.

And, a straightforward, "Alexa, ask HouseBand to play the album Katy Lied" should also play that album.

There really isn't any way to ask it the music is coming from Prime or MC20. You can ask, "Alexa, what's playing?" which isn't a HouseBand command. If it knows, then you know it's not playing through MC20. I suppose you could also look at the Alexa app. HouseBand songs won't show up under currently playing.

bhampster · « **Reply #204 on:** November 26, 2016, 03:53:18 pm »

Are you still suggesting this is only for music? ...

I have been trying to play a particular music track and I get various movies playing back.

Would be great if the app could consider music and video seperately ... and even better if it's designed to do both.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #205 on:** November 26, 2016, 04:06:11 pm »

@bhampster

It should depend on what commands you give. If you say:

Play the song....
Play the album...
Play songs by...

you'll get only music (tracks, albums, artists, respectively)

These commands are equivalent to prepending
[name]=
[album]=
[Album Artist (auto)]=

to your search string.

If you just say:

"Play the Last Waltz"

you'll get everything matching that search, including video and music.

If you say, "Play the movie the Last Waltz" or "Play the album the Last Waltz" you should get only one or the other.

Let me know if things are working differently for you. (Of course, all this depends on how things are tagged in your library.)

Steve

rn701 · « **Reply #206 on:** December 21, 2016, 05:02:19 am »

Just got our Dot and Harmony remote/hub Monday and I also set up House Band for JRiver. Very nice, excellent work.

One thing I noticed. When you ask it to play a playlist, it doesn't seem to use the shuffle setting. I have JRiver set to shuffle 'auto', but the playlist appears to load and play in the original order.

I tried to tell it to shuffle or reshuffle while playing the playlist but it doesn't seem to recognize those commands.

Anyway, super cool skill that works great for me otherwise. Nice job.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #207 on:** December 21, 2016, 05:34:02 am »

Based on this thread I was tempted to buy a Dot. But unfortunately amazon.de has not released it yet, and amazon.com or amazon.co.uk won't deliver it.

Actually what I would really like is to use Cortana on my HTPC to operate MC. Reason is that a) I don't have to buy any new hardware, and b) Cortana can issue commands locally without having to roundtrip all commands to Amazon's data centers and back again (not to mention big brother).

So Steve, (hint hint) may I draw you attention to the new Microsoft Cortana software development kit web site mentioned below. Admittedly they will only release the kit in February 2017. But I can hardly bear the wait...

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/cortana or https://aka.ms/cortanaskillspreview

Quote

Re-use your custom skill code built for Amazon Alexa. Your existing Alexa skill codebase means there’s no need to start from scratch when building Cortana skills.

Cortana skills aren’t tethered to one platform or device—they work across Windows 10, Android, and iOS so you can reach 145 million monthly users.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #208 on:** December 21, 2016, 07:48:56 am »

@AndrewFg

Okay, I signed up for the preview!
I'm just finishing up a new "version" of HouseBand, with much improved classical search and video search.
My next project was porting it over to Google Home. Why not Cortana. It shouldn't be too hard, I think.

Steve

AndrewFG · « **Reply #209 on:** December 21, 2016, 08:25:01 am »

^
I signed up to the Cortana preview too. Let's see what it looks like when it comes, but if I can help as sparring partner or whatever, please let me know..

dcpete · « **Reply #210 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:19:46 pm »

Hmmn, just got this device for early Christmas. Been a J River user for years. I can't seem to connect with House Band. It keeps saying "linking failed" and suggests checking port forwarding. All that is set up on my router and Firewall opened up as well (even disabled doesn't work). Not sure what to look into next. This is a problem with MC20 and MC22.

Edit: Forgot to mention, Gizmo works fine on my network and media server enabled with no authentication.

Chris

sarkonovich · « **Reply #211 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:30:53 pm »

Well, if your network isn't accessible from outside your network, then Gizmo will still work fine if connected to your home network.

Or, did you mean you that it worked when you went to this site:

http://jriver.com/webgizmo.html

entered your access code, and selected "Outside my Network" for location?

If that works, then HB should link. Let me know if the site above works and HB still can't link!

Make sure you are forwarding the port from the right IP address (the one that Media Center is running on) and that you forwarding the correct port (i.e., you haven't changed from the default of 52199)

Steve

rn701 · « **Reply #212 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:39:10 pm »

Is there a way to make House Band shuffle and play a playlist? Thanks!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #213 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:43:20 pm »

Nope, not now. You can play a playlist, but not shuffle it. I'll see if I can put that in update, coming out in few weeks, I'd think.

Steve

dcpete · « **Reply #214 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:45:43 pm »

That was a good test with webgizmo. No that didn't work, so I guess I am not getting at my server from outside my router.

Quote

Make sure you are forwarding the port from the right IP address (the one that Media Center is running on) and that you forwarding the correct port (i.e., you haven't changed from the default of 52199)
.

I am port forwarding correctly with the correct port (52199) and the IP address inside the router that Media Center is running on.

Chris

sarkonovich · « **Reply #215 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:47:12 pm »

Do you have a dual router setup?

sarkonovich · « **Reply #216 on:** December 21, 2016, 01:50:43 pm »

Also, just to be clear: you say you are forwarding from the "router" that Media Center is on.

Not sure if that was just a typo, but you need to forward the IP address of the computer that MC is running on.

dcpete · « **Reply #217 on:** December 21, 2016, 02:02:22 pm »

Yes, I am port-forwarding from the router that MC is on. Also, I can't seem to connect with webgizmo from inside or outside the network. But just double-checked and Gizmo still connects.

Now the dual router is a good question. I have a wireless extender and have 2 wireless networks in my house. I've tried both wireless networks with the same result. But Webgizmo I tried on a computer that is hardwired into the same router that MC is attached to and port forwarding setup.

Edit: I don't think my Wireless Extender is a factor. It is a D-Link DAP-1522 and is configured as an Access Point (AP). There are no settings on this device for port forwarding. My primary router is a D-Link 655.

Edit2: It seems port forwarding is not working on my router after trying a port tester and webgizmo tool. Everything appears to be configured properly, so not sure what's going on. I am able to use WebGizmo inside the network now, but not outside. That's where my focus lies now, seems to be my router.

Edit3:

Quote

Do you have a dual router setup?

I didn't think I did, but now realize I do and that is the problem I'm sure. I have an AT&T stand-alone modem upstream from my router. The Modem is doing NAT duties as well as my router. I believe I need to switch the modem to "bridged" mode since there doesn't seem to be anyway to do port forwarding on the modem itself. It also explains why configuration changes I was doing downstream (like port forwarding and Firewall) had no affect. I will report back after making this change.

Edit4: I guess I am screwed. I resolved the double NAT problem by bridging my modem to my router. But that does not solve the problem that my Routers Public address is 10.67.x.x and my external Public address is 76.254.x.x. So there are NAT rules being applied by my ISP (AT&T). This means I will never get port forwarding to work with my current ISP. There appears to be no solution when your ISP does this. A solution like DynDNS won't work and I don't really have an option of getting a fixed IP address.

Chris

rn701 · « **Reply #218 on:** December 21, 2016, 02:36:33 pm »

Quote from: sarkonovich on December 21, 2016, 01:43:20 pm

Nope, not now. You can play a playlist, but not shuffle it. I'll see if I can put that in update, coming out in few weeks, I'd think.

Steve

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out. And thanks for the great skill!

mwillems · « **Reply #219 on:** December 21, 2016, 05:17:18 pm »

Quote from: AndrewFG on December 21, 2016, 05:34:02 am

b) Cortana can issue commands locally without having to roundtrip all commands to Amazon's data centers and back again (not to mention big brother).

Not to derail, but how do you get Cortana to work locally and/or is Cortana different in Europe? Since the anniversary edition of Win 10, my understanding is that Cortana won't even work without a connection to MS servers for anything other than file search, and the TOS in the U.S. seems to pretty clearly indicate that it's sending voice data back to Microsoft more or less constantly for analysis (as speech to text is fairly computationally taxing). There are several MS support threads basically saying Cortana no longer works offline, so I'd be interested to know if there's an easy way to get local functionality.

To be clear, I would very much like to be wrong about this as Cortana seems pretty slick

Aircub · « **Reply #220 on:** December 21, 2016, 05:39:17 pm »

Any news on House Band for the UK version.

Thanks.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #221 on:** December 21, 2016, 06:37:05 pm »

Yes. I've been actively working on getting a new version done that, among other things, will be releasable in the UK. (It will also have classical search (including search by period, instrument, style....if you have tagged your library appropriately), and video search.

I'm guessing under a month....

Aircub · « **Reply #222 on:** December 22, 2016, 04:41:51 am »

Great news!

Many Thanks Steve.

Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year

AndrewFG · « **Reply #223 on:** December 22, 2016, 06:33:26 am »

Quote from: sarkonovich on December 21, 2016, 06:37:05 pm

among other things, will be releasable in the UK.

Apropos this, when you publish a skill with Amazon, you have to tell them the data center that it should run on. Amazon has a data center in USA to serve the Americas, and another one in Ireland to serve Europe (which, BoJo notwithstanding, includes UK). So your amazon.co.uk release should be hosted on the Ireland data center in order to minimize round trip latency across the Atlantic (or worse via a satellite bounce). Same would apply if you make a version for amazon.de / amazon.fr / amazon.it etc.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #224 on:** December 22, 2016, 02:59:07 pm »

Yes, that would be best. But the server's aren't free (cost of server + certificate), so both versions will be making calls to the same server in the US!

S

AndrewFG · « **Reply #225 on:** December 22, 2016, 04:44:13 pm »

^

Are you making money on this? Or just doing it for love. IMHO you should be making money, and actually IMHO I think Amazon should not be charging you for it. Just my 2c..

JimH · « **Reply #226 on:** December 22, 2016, 05:11:31 pm »

Love vs Money. Hmmm...

sarkonovich · « **Reply #227 on:** December 22, 2016, 05:20:43 pm »

So far I'm doing out of love...

But, if JRiver wants to chip in (Google Home and Cortana integration?) I personally wouldn't feel that a small monetary gain would cheapen my love.

JimH · « **Reply #228 on:** December 22, 2016, 06:30:18 pm »

We'll help out. I'm jimh at jriver. Just let me know what you need.

WinoOutWest · « **Reply #229 on:** December 23, 2016, 11:19:07 am »

Quote from: JimH on December 22, 2016, 06:30:18 pm

We'll help out. I'm jimh at jriver. Just let me know what you need.

Awesome!
Nice to see see JRiver helping out with some of the 3rd party dev's! One of the reasons I never hesitate at upgrade time.
Just got my Dot. Awesome integration!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #230 on:** December 23, 2016, 11:41:02 am »

@JimH

Thanks so much. That is really great. I'll shoot you an email.

Steve

sarkonovich · « **Reply #231 on:** December 23, 2016, 01:19:40 pm »

@rn701.

Okay, when the next version is released you'll be able to shuffle playlists with the command, "Shuffle my [playlist name] playlist." or "Shuffle the playlist [playlist name]", etc.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Steve

rn701 · « **Reply #232 on:** December 24, 2016, 11:08:59 am »

Quote from: sarkonovich on December 23, 2016, 01:19:40 pm

@rn701.

Okay, when the next version is released you'll be able to shuffle playlists with the command, "Shuffle my [playlist name] playlist." or "Shuffle the playlist [playlist name]", etc.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Steve

Awesome, thanks!

dcpete · « **Reply #233 on:** December 24, 2016, 11:49:39 am »

I suppose this device can't control things locally for folks like me who are restricted by their ISP from port forwarding (see my previous post). It's too bad that this device sits on my local net along with J River and a ton of media, yet all the processing is done on the cloud and it can't directly control local devices. Am I correct in my thinking, or is there another way?

Chris

sarkonovich · « **Reply #234 on:** December 24, 2016, 12:01:02 pm »

@dcpete

I'm afraid there is no way (that I know of.) The requests are coming in from outside your network, since the HouseBand is just a hosted web service.

You might look here for some help:
https://portforward.com/help/doublerouterportforwarding.htm

but I don't know. You seem to have a pretty solid grip on the situation. Still, there might be a tip on that site you have overlooked...

Misterboy · « **Reply #235 on:** December 26, 2016, 11:06:25 pm »

Hi,

I was just gifted an Echo Dot and I'm trying to set it up with House Band, but I'm having no luck.

I've added the Skill, and when I ask Alexa to launch Houseband, she requests that I link my account, sends me the "card" to the Alexa App, etc. Everything works perfectly. I can link the account just fine... it says "Your House Band Skill was successfully linked. You can now leave this page".

So everything's great right? Except when I ask her to launch House Band, she says I need to link my account. I've linked my account successfully about 20 times so far.

She doesn't see any music, and doesn't seem capable of using House Band.

Worth noting: When testing my Media Library, Media Center says it's accessible. When I link Alexa to my server, I do see a 131 byte event in the server log. I have port forwarding setup, and I do not have password protection enabled.

So, as far as I can tell, my network settings are fine, the link is happening... except that it's not.

Any suggestions?

sarkonovich · « **Reply #236 on:** December 26, 2016, 11:35:44 pm »

@Misterboy

Sorry for that. This is a new one for me.
I know that Amazon has been experiencing difficulty with skill enablement all day, off and on, but I'm not at all sure that that's what is happening.

Try this. Go to the Alexa app, or echo.amazon.com, disable/re-enable the skill, and go through linking that way.

Also you if you could email me privately your access code, I can check to see if everything got saved okay.

Is there any chance that you have two different Alexa profiles?

Steve

sarkonovich · « **Reply #237 on:** December 27, 2016, 12:08:22 am »

@Misterboy

It looks like everything is setup correctly on your end, and I'm guessing I can see your activity in my logs.

My best guess is that you have two different profiles....or multiple Alexa devices? I think you are enabling the skill for one device/account and requesting the skill for the other. What is happening is that the access token that Amazon gives you when linking your account is not the same one that being presented when you launch the skill. HouseBand needs that token to access your information. But it's not the right token, so it's asking you to link your account again.

Misterboy · « **Reply #238 on:** December 27, 2016, 12:52:31 am »

Thanks for your response,

I saw your PM and have replied there. However the PM system of this forum appears broken. There's no record of my sent PM (just one from several years ago) so I can't verify if I'm actually sending you a reply.

In summary: I only have this one, new, device. I do have 2 amazon accounts I use, but I registered the device using the primary account, which is the one signed on using the Alexa app and is the one showing this Echo Dot as one of "My Devices".

I've tried completely resetting the Echo Dot several times now, but it still won't sync properly with House Band. I'm wondering if a bad credential is saved in your database? I'm not sure what else I can try on my end. I've reset the device completely twice and I get the same result each time.

The only other thing I can think of is that that device is faulty?

sarkonovich · « **Reply #239 on:** December 27, 2016, 01:13:35 am »

Misterboy's issue was resolved.

It was an issue with separate Amazon accounts/profiles.

I'm posting this here in case others have a similar issue.

dcpete · « **Reply #240 on:** December 27, 2016, 01:34:44 pm »

Quote

You might look here for some help:
https://portforward.com/help/doublerouterportforwarding.htm

That's a nice read. Thanks. But isn't my scenario where the ISP is doing Carrier-grade NAT. Here is a description from Wikipedia...

Quote

Carrier-grade NAT usually prevents the ISP customers from using port forwarding, because the network address translation (NAT) is usually implemented by mapping ports of the NAT devices in the network to other ports in the external interface. This is done so the router will be able to map the responses to the correct device; in carrier-grade NAT networks, even though the router at the consumer end might be configured for port forwarding, the "master router" of the ISP, which runs the CGN, will block this port forwarding because the actual port would not be the port configured by the consumer.[6] In order to overcome the former disadvantage, the Port Control Protocol (PCP) has been standarized in the RFC 6887.

Edit: Interesting. Just re-reading this description I see that a protocol (PCP) has been invented to address this issue. I guess I will do some research on that. I presume the ISP needs to have this protocol implemented and probably the router needs to have PCP support as well.

Chris

eezetee · « **Reply #241 on:** December 29, 2016, 09:33:57 am »

Chiming in to say I got the

DOT + BubbleUPnP + JRiver MC 22 and Chromecast Audio device all worked tonight.

Super straight forward with the bubble part

A few minor issues in asking Alexa to play "play all songs by acdc" or similar, it's like it was reaching out to amazon prime and maybe came out of the house band skilll. Asking it "Alexa, tell house band to ..." seemed to work.

Only maybe deal breaker for me is that my JRiver Server is on 192.168.X.0/24 and my wireless network is 192.168.Y.0/24

No matter what I did, I coudn't get it to work (multicast mapping, etc etc) so I tested giving the wireless clients an IP on the X network (matching the server) and it seems the DLNA broadcast local stuff works.

But I'm not going to be putting this (or any device) on that network, even with access-lists's/port security.

Thanks for a good solution, i'll be trying to figure out a better way that I can use it.

Knick · « **Reply #242 on:** December 29, 2016, 10:21:18 am »

@sarkonovich

Got my Dot up and running over holiday, and very much enjoying your hard work integrating MC22, Alexa through House Band.

I am using combination of House Band and JRemote to run MC22, and find that loading playlists, skipping tracks and finding files is easier with House Band. Its also fun to have House Band read off the various versions of a song available and then respond to your refined choice.

I'm running a Bryston amp with MC22 acting as preamp, speakers in living room, Echo DOT in the kitchen. Controlling volume with JRemote is more granular as volume gradiations can be set to any volume (10, 15, 28, 47 and 90 too frequently until phone rings or wife comes home) using the slider in JRemote pretty quickly, but hands-free House Band is preferable when busy in the kitchen.

Is finer volume tuning, rather than 10% gradiations, planned or possible for a future release of House Band? Nice to be able to turn down to a precise volume quickly with House Band.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #243 on:** December 29, 2016, 10:32:44 am »

@Knick

A couple of people have asked me about that. It's easy to do, of course. It's all a trade off, figuring out how to keep adding features to a voice interface without making it seem like there's a list of commands that need to be memorized.

I guess I could use the phrases Louder/softer[quieter] and Much louder/much softer[quieter]. More volume and much more volume, etc.

Or, are you just asking for, something like, "Volume 27"

Knick · « **Reply #244 on:** December 29, 2016, 04:11:41 pm »

Quote from: sarkonovich on December 29, 2016, 10:32:44 am

@Knick

A couple of people have asked me about that. It's easy to do, of course. It's all a trade off, figuring out how to keep adding features to a voice interface without making it seem like there's a list of commands that need to be memorized.

I guess I could use the phrases Louder/softer[quieter] and Much louder/much softer[quieter]. More volume and much more volume, etc.

Or, are you just asking for, something like, "Volume 27"

Kind of hoping for more along the lines of a specific gradient between 1 and 100, like "Volume 27". Know that may not fit everyones needs, but it does mine.

jrobbins · « **Reply #245 on:** December 29, 2016, 05:43:07 pm »

Hello! I have a couple of House Band questions.

First, if I launch House Band and ask it to change zones to (for example) Living Room Player, it tells me that there is no such zone. If I ask what zones do I have, it lists my JRiver zones, including Living Room Player. So, I'm not sure why I get this behavior.

Second, is there a way to keep Alexa awake, so to speak, for House Band? It seems that I have to re-launch House Band constantly if I want to change tracks or albums.

Thanks for the help and happy new year! Cheers. JCR

sarkonovich · « **Reply #246 on:** December 29, 2016, 05:54:01 pm »

@jrobbins

Thanks for the feedback. I would suggest changing the zone name to just "Living Room."
I jjust changed my zone name to "Living Room Player", and got the behavior you mentioned. In particular, Alexa didn't hear the word "Player" so was looking for a zone named "Living Room."

I'll try to fix this on the next release.

Unfortunately, all commands have to be proceeded by "Ask HouseBand to...."

Most 3rd party Alexa "skills" have an invocation name. (There are a couple of exceptions.) To use the skill, you have to use it's invocation name.

This is a big complaint among users, and Amazon says that it's working on solutions. For example, you might be able to pick "default" skills. But for the foreseeable future, this is the way it works. (It's the same on Google Home, I believe.)

Steve

ccchuck · « **Reply #247 on:** January 05, 2017, 06:28:02 pm »

Quote from: JimH on December 22, 2016, 06:30:18 pm

We'll help out. I'm jimh at jriver. Just let me know what you need.

JRiver needs to tell us what equipment this would run on - I myself want to use it with NAS - but would needadvise as to which one will run JRiver software (this seems to be model dependent and hard to get answers about ) -
It is an exciting possibility to me, and a "package" list, i.e., buy this and this and this and it will work, would put it the hands of those who normally avoid this level of interest.

JimH · « **Reply #248 on:** January 06, 2017, 01:46:25 am »

House Band works with JRiver Media Center, so anything that JRiver supports will work. Any NAS will work if you import the files into MC. MC must be running though.

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #249 on:** January 06, 2017, 02:20:45 am »

Quote from: jrobbins on December 29, 2016, 05:43:07 pm

Hello! I have a couple of House Band questions.

First, if I launch House Band and ask it to change zones to (for example) Living Room Player, it tells me that there is no such zone. If I ask what zones do I have, it lists my JRiver zones, including Living Room Player. So, I'm not sure why I get this behavior.

Second, is there a way to keep Alexa awake, so to speak, for House Band? It seems that I have to re-launch House Band constantly if I want to change tracks or albums.

Thanks for the help and happy new year! Cheers. JCR

Sounds like a deal breaker to me

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Author Topic: House Band -- Amazon Echo integration is available (Read 288566 times)