Topic: House Band -- Amazon Echo integration is available (Read 285754 times)

sarkonovich · « **Reply #350 on:** March 03, 2017, 08:48:26 am »

@kidtwist

Okay. It's fixed. Thanks for letting me know!

Steve

AndrewFG · « **Reply #351 on:** March 12, 2017, 08:14:54 am »

I have been using this skill on and off for a couple of months now. Whilst the wow effect is quite cool with my friends, it is unfortunately not usable as a real user interface for MC.

The problem is that the word recognition is appallingly bad. My library comprises about 15k tracks, and with all the track titles, album names, artist & composer names etc., I suppose there is a vocabulary of the order of 100k phrases that the skill must be able to understand. And apparently Amazon is just not up to that yet.

I was thinking about how to improve that. In theory, if one could deliver the meta data set from ones MC library to Amazon in advance, then the speech recognizer could use that as a basis for improving its hit rate.

I wonder if Amazon is thinking about such a feature extension. Any thoughts anyone?

Kid Twist · « **Reply #352 on:** March 12, 2017, 02:09:36 pm »

Quote from: sarkonovich on March 03, 2017, 08:48:26 am

@kidtwist

Okay. It's fixed. Thanks for letting me know!

Steve

Thanks!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #353 on:** March 12, 2017, 02:28:04 pm »

@AndrewFG

Hmm. Just my personal experience is that the recognition isn't "appallingly bad", though it isn't perfect, and is inconsistent. But generally, I can get what I want with not trouble. (For the most part, for me, the difficulties have to do with foreign names (so for classical music, yeah, it's not good).

But, obviously, your mile might (and does) vary.

However, simply adding the metadata set from your library likely won't help. The reason is that once the utterance samples get numerous enough, adding more does not help the recognition. I can't remember how many utterance samples I had for the early versions of HouseBand - but thousands. Adding more didn't help. The best recognition comes when there are few samples, and the user speaks on of them.

More and more Amazon is moving away from the model where the developer provides samples towards a model where the developer just lets Amazon know what *kind* of utterance it is (e.g., mentioning a pop artist, or the name of a US city), and then handles more and more on their end.

But I think the accuracy will continue to improve.

What would help more is not if the current tags could get uploaded to Amazon (because adding a tag like "10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄" -- a track from the recent Bon Iver album -- won't help anything.) What would be better is if music started including voice accessible tags.

I was thinking of trying to write a MC script convert tags to their metaphone equivalents automatically, create new fields for those tags, and then have HouseBand search those tags. I think this would make a huge improvement.

Steve

Steve

amo · « **Reply #354 on:** March 29, 2017, 06:44:52 am »

Hi, since it seems that House Band is not available in Germany, I started to develop an own skill (in German and Swiss-German). I created a small JRiver Client API and a basic skill which is capable of playing music by queries and asking which Albums to play (play, pause, next... is also available). I will put all the code to Github next week (I need the weekend to polish the code )... and would be happy to find some helping hands for more functionality and more languages.... (Java code) currently I'm not sure if I will publish the Skill at Amazon, since I don't know what costs to expect... But one question to the creator of House band... is it opensource? if not... why? Is it possible that you publish your Utterance (what an ugly name) file?
Thx
Andy

preproman · « **Reply #355 on:** April 02, 2017, 12:07:56 pm »

Can you configure House Band to play out of the Dot or Echo speakers that the (play something) command was giving from?

sarkonovich · « **Reply #356 on:** April 03, 2017, 11:21:00 am »

Quote from: amo on March 29, 2017, 06:44:52 am

Hi, since it seems that House Band is not available in Germany, I started to develop an own skill (in German and Swiss-German). I created a small JRiver Client API and a basic skill which is capable of playing music by queries and asking which Albums to play (play, pause, next... is also available). I will put all the code to Github next week (I need the weekend to polish the code )... and would be happy to find some helping hands for more functionality and more languages.... (Java code) currently I'm not sure if I will publish the Skill at Amazon, since I don't know what costs to expect... But one question to the creator of House band... is it opensource? if not... why? Is it possible that you publish your Utterance (what an ugly name) file?
Thx
Andy

Hello!

Currently, it's not open source but it might be in the future. I am happy to put the utterance file up on GitHub. I've been meaning to do that anyway for help getting it translated to German. A german version is happening, but I'm too busy for the next month or so to do it. After that, it's coming.

SatanicGizmo · « **Reply #357 on:** April 17, 2017, 05:35:52 am »

I see you can use this to play music via the Echo by using a bluetooth stream, but is it technically possible to stream music to the Echo over WiFi? I've seen in the API they introduced streaming of audio data, but I'm not sure how flexible this is and I'm not convinced I'd get a bluetooth audio streaming working reliably on a R-PI head.

The mean reason for this just having a single audio source for both alexa and audio such that it can drop the volume of the audio when listening for instructions etc...

In this case audio quality is just fine, it's just for general music in the kitchen. I'm aware you can upload tracks to amazon, but when you have thousands already sitting on a media server next to the device, it seems crazy to have to upload and re-stream everything!

Edit:
Specifically, the new API's added in "New Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) Feature: Audio Streaming in Alexa Skills". You'd need the head to provide a streamed WAV as an audio output and play this on the Echo.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #358 on:** April 17, 2017, 03:13:27 pm »

The real difficulty with this is that for audio streaming directly to an Alexa device, the audio file must be hosted on an HTTPS site, and be (I think) publicly accessible. So, you'd need to be able to access the file with a simple call like:

https://my-audio-hosting-site.com/audio/sample-song.mp3

Obviously, JRiver doesn't make your files accessible like that. I don't know what would be required to write a skill that would stream your own music library directly to Alexa, but I suspect it would not be easy. And it wouldn't be a skill that was publishable - it would have to just be a private skill.

Steve

meep · « **Reply #359 on:** April 21, 2017, 06:27:32 am »

Quote from: sarkonovich on April 17, 2017, 03:13:27 pm

The real difficulty with this is that for audio streaming directly to an Alexa device, the audio file must be hosted on an HTTPS site, and be (I think) publicly accessible. So, you'd need to be able to access the file with a simple call like:

https://my-audio-hosting-site.com/audio/sample-song.mp3

Obviously, JRiver doesn't make your files accessible like that. I don't know what would be required to write a skill that would stream your own music library directly to Alexa, but I suspect it would not be easy. And it wouldn't be a skill that was publishable - it would have to just be a private skill.

Steve

Apparently, if you wrap the http url in a .m3u file served from https, it will work.

I'm currently building the equivalent skill for controlling Squeezebox devices (www.hab-tunes.com) and while I haven't tried this yet, i'll be doing so fairly soon and will let you know. It would be even better if you could include a local network address - we'll see!

Peter

sarkonovich · « **Reply #360 on:** April 21, 2017, 11:21:20 am »

@meep

Yes! Let me know how this works out. I'd be most interested if there were some way to do this for a public skill. (Personally, I'm happy to just use Spotify, etc., to stream music through the Echo.)

Steve

turbofeet · « **Reply #361 on:** May 01, 2017, 10:28:20 am »

Does this work in the UK? Just bought an Echo for this feature. Cheers

turbofeet · « **Reply #362 on:** May 01, 2017, 10:36:59 am »

Sorry just saw on previous page there is a UK version.

Thanks

Tom D. · « **Reply #363 on:** May 01, 2017, 07:42:57 pm »

I just bought an Echo dot and am trying for 2 days to get House Band to set up. When I submit my access code this is what I get:

Linking Failed. Cannot reach JRiver Media Center at http://71.88.54.147:52199 or http://71-88-54-147.dhcp.nwtn.ct.charter.com:52199 Your Library Server is not accessible from outside your home network. Please ensure that your server is running and accessible from outside your home network.

You might need to enable port forwarding on your router.

Instructions for enabling port forwarding can be found here: https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Network_Access

I have a NetGear Nighthawk R8000 router and we haved tried everything to enable port forwarding but cannot get it to work

Please help ?

Thanks
Tom

JimH · « **Reply #364 on:** May 01, 2017, 08:20:27 pm »

If you're on the same network, then you don't need port forwarding. There may be a firewall problem.

Tom D. · « **Reply #365 on:** May 01, 2017, 08:40:25 pm »

I have the firewall turned off On my Mac . Is there also a firewall on the router?

Tom D. · « **Reply #366 on:** May 01, 2017, 09:01:38 pm »

I can't find any other program or application that would have a firewall

sarkonovich · « **Reply #367 on:** May 02, 2017, 09:48:05 am »

I couple basic things just to double check:

Make sure you're forwarding the port for the correct IP address, i.e., the address of the device running Media Center.
Also, make sure that you're forwarding the right port, e.g., you didn't change the default port of 52199.

Steve

turbofeet · « **Reply #368 on:** May 02, 2017, 01:18:10 pm »

Hi
I cannot seem to be able to link the skill to my Media Server at all. Port forwarding is working and I can see my library from an external location:

http://xx.xx.xx.xx:52199/Panel/

I get no errors at all on the Alexa App on my phone; I enter the 6-digit code and it simply reverts back to the "house band" skill page.

How can I see where the issue lies?

I am in the UK. Perhaps this is why?

Cheers

turbofeet · « **Reply #369 on:** May 02, 2017, 01:24:07 pm »

I really should wait before posting....

Note it did not work on my phone but I could successfully link the account using Edge on Windows 10 (after logging in to my Amazon Account).

Perhaps just an incompatible browser on my Android device.

Sorry!

Tom D. · « **Reply #370 on:** May 02, 2017, 01:25:54 pm »

Hi Steve
Here's what I've got. I'm trying to create an open port through our netgear router. In the port forwarding tab I can only specify an internal port, an external port and an internal ip address. What should I put in them? I run MC on my Mac. I use Gizmo on an android tablet and I play my music through a Bel Canto RefStream which sits on my network with it's own IP address.

Thanks
Tom

Tom D. · « **Reply #371 on:** May 02, 2017, 07:55:09 pm »

Ok I got it up and running. So far it does not recognize songs very well and it wont play playlists. Ill search through this thread. pretty sure there are some answers for that.

Do I have to say "open house band " before each command?

JimH · « **Reply #372 on:** May 03, 2017, 05:53:15 am »

There are some instructions here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=15326.msg717359#msg717359

sarkonovich · « **Reply #373 on:** May 03, 2017, 12:12:56 pm »

Quote from: Tom D. on May 02, 2017, 07:55:09 pm

Ok I got it up and running. So far it does not recognize songs very well and it wont play playlists. Ill search through this thread. pretty sure there are some answers for that.

Do I have to say "open house band " before each command?

In short, yes. But I think it's easier to say, "tell house band to play..."

Feel free to pm if you are having troubles with particular artists/playlists.

For playlists, recall that they should be named something "voice-recognizable". A playlist called "d-best" songs or something like that is going to be hard to recognize. (Though HouseBand does look up playlists roughly phonetically.)

Steve

Tom D. · « **Reply #374 on:** May 03, 2017, 08:24:35 pm »

Thanks Steve.

I worked with Alexa a lot today and had better luck. It seems the more she learns your voice the better she gets. I'll mess with it for a few days and then let you know what's still not working. Today some of the playlists were recognized. Some songs she just couldn't get no matter how many times I tried but maybe in a few days that will get better. I used the Alexa voice training program and that seemed to help too.

Tom

RBurchat · « **Reply #375 on:** May 05, 2017, 09:09:41 am »

I recently purchased Echo, tried to Link Account using House band but got the linking Failed message. Have tried reading through all of the posting about port forwarding; accessed my router (ASUS RT-AC68U) but not sure I have done it correctly? What goes in each of the fields: Service Name (?), Port Range (?), Local IP (internal I assume) Local Port (52199), Protocol (?)
I have tried multiple times with same effect; using Norton Security Suite disabling Firewall (temp) with same errors! I am a novice so this is beyond my knowledge of networking; really need a step-by-step; a "Setup for DUMMIES" as it were. Can someone help!
Randy

datdude · « **Reply #376 on:** May 05, 2017, 09:25:55 pm »

Just tried this out and it works sometimes. I am finding that MC 22 freezes a lot and just says 'waiting' until I kill the process in task manager and restart. MC has not frozen in ages for me until now. It seems to do it when Alexa can't initially find something and then after a few more tries it works. If I get it right the first time, MC seems to play reliably.

KBoz · « **Reply #377 on:** May 07, 2017, 10:20:59 pm »

I'm not having any luck getting this set up on my Mac Mini Server. I've tried port forwarding using 99.1.47.2 which is my external IP and 52199 as the port to both local Mac Mini IPs setting both TCP and UDP connections to forward any external use of port 52199 to the MAC IP address.. I've checked and I can link to my JRiver MC 22 server on the Mac via the local network with JRemote but not via the internet. I've turned off the Mac firewall and still no luck. Since this is a Mac I don't have to worry about the Windows specific issues.

Any suggestions? I'm running an AT&T U-Verse router (2-Wire) and it doesn't appear it's restricting access to specific MAC addresses. I've also made sure to restart the router.

datdude · « **Reply #378 on:** May 08, 2017, 12:17:40 am »

How do zones work with house band and JRemote? I can tell JRemote to switch to a zone and play music on it. It if I then tell house band to play different music, it plays it on a different zone.

JimH · « **Reply #379 on:** May 08, 2017, 05:56:17 am »

Quote from: KBoz on May 07, 2017, 10:20:59 pm

I'm not having any luck getting this set up on my Mac Mini Server. I've tried port forwarding using 99.1.47.2 which is my external IP and 52199 as the port to both local Mac Mini IPs setting both TCP and UDP connections to forward any external use of port 52199 to the MAC IP address.. I've checked and I can link to my JRiver MC 22 server on the Mac via the local network with JRemote but not via the internet. I've turned off the Mac firewall and still no luck. Since this is a Mac I don't have to worry about the Windows specific issues.

Any suggestions? I'm running an AT&T U-Verse router (2-Wire) and it doesn't appear it's restricting access to specific MAC addresses. I've also made sure to restart the router.

This might help:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Network_Access

It appears from your description that you're trying to set up access from the Internet (outside your LAN). Is that correct? No router changes would be required if you're connecting from your LAN only.

datdude · « **Reply #380 on:** May 08, 2017, 06:23:45 pm »

No matter what I try, I cannot get House Band to recognize 'pharcyde'. I have tried renaming the artist and playlists to 'far side' 'farside' 'pharside' etc.. and it still doesn't work. If I just ask Alexa to play pharcyde, without house band invocation, Alexa plays from Amazon correctly.

HiFiTubes · « **Reply #381 on:** May 09, 2017, 08:53:31 am »

Funny, I put on the pharcyde on Alexa last week no issues.

I think it did get mixed with some other punk or ska band named Far Side

Sent from my EVA-L19 using Tapatalk

sarkonovich · « **Reply #382 on:** May 12, 2017, 03:49:56 pm »

Quote from: datdude on May 08, 2017, 06:23:45 pm

No matter what I try, I cannot get House Band to recognize 'pharcyde'. I have tried renaming the artist and playlists to 'far side' 'farside' 'pharside' etc.. and it still doesn't work. If I just ask Alexa to play pharcyde, without house band invocation, Alexa plays from Amazon correctly.

I'll note this and add it explicitly to the list of artists next time update (should be in the next month or so.)

You might want to say something like, "ask houseband to play music by pharcyde" or "the band pharcyde." This actually seems to help Amazon's voice recognition by giving it a context.

Alexa's voice recognition is, for the most part, out of the control of developers. But it's clear that it depends heavily on context.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #383 on:** May 12, 2017, 03:54:13 pm »

Quote from: datdude on May 08, 2017, 12:17:40 am

How do zones work with house band and JRemote? I can tell JRemote to switch to a zone and play music on it. It if I then tell house band to play different music, it plays it on a different zone.

HouseBand just uses MCWS requests. To set the zone it looks up the zone id by name and sends a set zone command:

[server_address]/Playback/SetZone?Zone=[id]&ZoneType=ID&Token=[server_token]

datdude · « **Reply #384 on:** May 13, 2017, 08:33:12 pm »

Right, but my issue is during playback, not setting the zone. Zone switching works fine when I tell house band to switch. The issue is that, for example today even, I was playing music through a specific zone and when I asked house band to change the volume, nothing happened. So I then asked house band to change the zone to the current one already playing, and then when I asked it to change the volume, it worked properly. It seems like house band is getting confused with what the active zone is. Can that be fixed?

Also I've had some other issues with not recognizing certain artists and words. Examples:

1) AC/DC - no matter how I spell it in JRiver, house band won't recognize it.

2) Dave Matthews Band - I've tried even just doing Dave Matthews and it still won't work.

3) Listen to the music - I have a playlist titled this and house band only recognizes the word 'listen'

When I initially installed house band as a skill I was able to see cards in the Alexa app and could tell it if she heard me properly or not. Now I don't see those cards pop up at all. I've tried disabling and renabling the skill, but that did not help. I've also done quite a bit of voice training. Alexa for the most part recognizes most music related commands I play through amazon music, but many similar commands are not recognized by house band.

I'm happy to discuss via PM and happy to donate if that would help! I really like where house band is headed if I can overcome these issues. Thanks for your help!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #385 on:** May 14, 2017, 03:19:39 pm »

@datdude

Thanks for the feedback. I will re-enable the feedback cards. In the last round of certification Amazon told me to remove them because they contained "code references." This was because I returned the actual search string and it had square-brackets. I fought with them about this for a bit, but it was easier to just get rid of it. I'll put it back....and see if they notice.

I'll take a look at these other things and let you know if I can find some helpful tips.

datdude · « **Reply #386 on:** May 14, 2017, 10:13:51 pm »

Rad, thank you, sir!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #387 on:** May 15, 2017, 10:05:31 am »

@datdude

I went back to check on these things and this is what I found.

Currently, you should be getting a card in the app whenever a search fails (so you can see what happened) and whenever the search returns multiple results. I didn't change anything, that is the current behavior

I can play AC/DC with the request: Play songs by AC/DC. Occasionally it hears "a CDC", but it usually works.

You're right about the zone behavior. Maybe there is a better way to do it. But there could be several active zones and controllers, e.g., someone is listening to something on the phone with Gizmo and someone else through the stereo controlling it with the laptop. Alexa is just another controller....

datdude · « **Reply #388 on:** May 15, 2017, 06:24:33 pm »

Quote from: sarkonovich on May 15, 2017, 10:05:31 am

Currently, you should be getting a card in the app whenever a search fails (so you can see what happened) and whenever the search returns multiple results.

I am now seeing cards for multiple results, but not for when alexa says "i couldn't find...".

Quote from: sarkonovich on May 15, 2017, 10:05:31 am

I can play AC/DC with the request: Play songs by AC/DC. Occasionally it hears "a CDC", but it usually works.

When asking to play 'songs' by AC/DC, house band finds multiple results, but when asking to play the playlist 'AC/DC', house band says it cannot find it. I have many playlists setup that only play certain songs by each artist, and house band plays most of them, except for a few.

Quote from: sarkonovich on May 15, 2017, 10:05:31 am

But there could be several active zones and controllers, e.g., someone is listening to something on the phone with Gizmo and someone else through the stereo controlling it with the laptop. Alexa is just another controller....

Interesting. So JRemote is a controller, and there is a setting to tell it to follow the server. Could that be the default behavior for house band? Maybe others wouldn't like that though... Is there a setting in MC to tell all controllers to follow server zone changes?

sarkonovich · « **Reply #389 on:** May 17, 2017, 02:16:44 pm »

Quote from: datdude on May 15, 2017, 06:24:33 pm

I am now seeing cards for multiple results, but not for when alexa says "i couldn't find...".

Hmm. So, if you ask for a band that you don't have any music for ("Alexa, play songs by motorhead") you don't get a card like this:

Search String(s) Used:
[album artist (auto)]=Motörhead

That's a result I just copied and pasted from a search I knew would turn up nothing.

Quote from: datdude on May 15, 2017, 06:24:33 pm

When asking to play 'songs' by AC/DC, house band finds multiple results, but when asking to play the playlist 'AC/DC', house band says it cannot find it. I have many playlists setup that only play certain songs by each artist, and house band plays most of them, except for a few.

Let me look into that. So, if I create an AC/DC playlist and ask for it, HouseBand can't find it. If I look in request history of the Alexa App, it shows that the request was understood correctly ("Play my ac/dc playlist.") So, that looks like a HouseBand problem.

Quote from: datdude on May 15, 2017, 06:24:33 pm

Interesting. So JRemote is a controller, and there is a setting to tell it to follow the server. Could that be the default behavior for house band? Maybe others wouldn't like that though... Is there a setting in MC to tell all controllers to follow server zone changes?

I'll look into that.

I just turned in my grades for the end of the year, so I can turn my attention to this once again, including maybe, getting the German version going and finishing the port to Google Home.

datdude · « **Reply #390 on:** May 17, 2017, 04:41:48 pm »

Quote from: sarkonovich on May 17, 2017, 02:16:44 pm

So, if you ask for a band that you don't have any music for ("Alexa, play songs by motorhead") you don't get a card like this:

Search String(s) Used:
[album artist (auto)]=Motörhead

That scenario works. I was just trying playlists, and using the AC/DC example, no card is shown.

Thanks for looking into the other issues! Good luck in getting your other projects done!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #391 on:** May 18, 2017, 10:35:09 am »

Quote from: datdude on May 17, 2017, 04:41:48 pm

That scenario works. I was just trying playlists, and using the AC/DC example, no card is shown.

Thanks for looking into the other issues! Good luck in getting your other projects done!

Yeah, I never implemented cards for playlists. Weirdly (well, not that weird) recognition of band/artist names is worse for playlists than songs/albums. My theory, without much evidence, is that the recognition depends a lot on context, so if you say "Play songs by..." the Amazon AI is more likely to return, e.g., AC/DC. If you say, "Tell me about AC/DC" it might be more likely to guess you said, "a CDC" or something like that. Asking for a playlist doesn't seem trigger a "music" context.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #392 on:** May 22, 2017, 02:38:37 pm »

All,

Now that summer is here, I want to take another run at improving HouseBand.

I would love it if people who have specific, repeatable problems with the app pm me and let me know. In order of importance, I'd love feedback on:

1. Features that should work but don't, at least, not reliably -- *other* than recognition problems

2. Recognition problems! (Band/Artist/Composer names that you think really should work, but don't, i.e., not the symbol for the musician formerly known as prince, or Sigur Ros song names....)

3. New Feature requests.

Recently, Amazon has introduced real Beta Testing for skills, so I wouldn't mind if people want to be guinea pigs and Beta Test the new version once it comes around.

PM me if you can help out!

Thanks,
Steve

augeydoggy · « **Reply #393 on:** June 12, 2017, 04:09:55 pm »

Sorry for being stupid, but trying to understand how this works before trying to install. It appears that the connection between the computer and the Echo has to be over bluetooth, and will not work over wifi? That certainly means much lower quality, and I don't see an advantage over just connecting my phone with the Echo.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #394 on:** June 12, 2017, 04:20:56 pm »

Yes, the skill isn't really meant to play music through the Echo. You can do that via any number of streaming services.

It's a voice interface for JRiver Media Center.

AndrewFG · « **Reply #395 on:** June 12, 2017, 07:49:07 pm »

Steve, take a look over on the beta forum; at the top of the forum, there is a new feature planned for MC23 that will a) interest you, and b) you will want to support..

sarkonovich · « **Reply #396 on:** June 13, 2017, 10:35:00 am »

@AndreFG

I see it. Thanks!

datdude · « **Reply #397 on:** June 20, 2017, 08:07:03 pm »

Did something happen to house band on the backend? As of a few days ago house band stopped responding to pretty much any command for me.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #398 on:** June 20, 2017, 08:13:22 pm »

Nope. Nothing.

I just gave it three quick searches/commands, and it worked.

datdude · « **Reply #399 on:** June 22, 2017, 06:56:20 pm »

I disabled the skill and then linked it back up and everything is working again. Any particular reasons why that might happen so I can avoid that in the future?

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Author Topic: House Band -- Amazon Echo integration is available (Read 285754 times)