Listening during audio playback

[Isaac Squires]

So, I’ve been playing recorded audio (rather than using flite for speech), and I’d really like for open ears to be able to listen to the user at the same time. This way the user could interrupt my app with a command like “Stop” or “Pause”.

However, if I listen while playing audio from AVAudioPLayer, open ears will trigger off of the output from the speakers – even if the user isn’t saying anything.

Is there any way to ignore / cancel out audio that comes from the device?

[Halle Winkler]

Hi,

Is there a reason you can’t suspend listening before playing audio and resume afterwards? Suspend and resume are near-instant.

[Isaac Squires]

That’s what I currently do. What I’d like to add, is the ability to listen during audio playback, so that the user could interrupt the audio (in some cases, I might be playing 2 minutes worth of audio, and would like a voice input for cancelling). Is this possible?

[Halle Winkler]

OK, that isn’t yet implemented.

[Isaac Squires]

Ok thanks – I didn’t think it was possible, but wanted to check just in case. I appreciate your quick response, and all the work you’ve put into documenting and supporting OpenEars. So far it is working very well for our application.

[Halle Winkler]

Glad to hear it!

[amccann]

Hi:

Has there been any progress on the ability to listen while playing other audio?

Thanks
Alan

[Halle Winkler]

Welcome Alan,

I’m starting to get around to investigating this feature although I’m not sure that echo cancellation on diverse kinds of input and/or media objects is going to be trivial. How are you playing back your audio, and where does the requirement come from that the speech needs to be recognized parallel to the playback (versus suspending recognition until the playback is complete and then resuming)?

[amccann]

Hi Halle:

First of all, thank you for all of your work on OpenEars, etc. I am working on the prototype application now and anticipate buying it within a month (not sure which pieces yet). It must feel good to get the latest version out.

The basic idea I am going for is an ability to interrupt the playback of the audio by voice and issue a command to the application.

Imagine playing back music in Itunes on my phone. Manually, I can stop playback, switch to another song, or otherwise control iTunes at any point. If I want *only* voice control, I have to wait for the current song to finish and then prompt the user for a voice command. I can always manually interrupt the application somehow and then prompt the user but I’m aiming for complete audio control except starting the app. The need for this comes in for times where manual operation is less desirable – walking, running, driving, coding with my hands on my keyboard, etc.

I haven’t finished testing the exactly how I will be playing the audio but the audio will be retrieved in a file from a url (perhaps cached locally). At this time, I will likely only be playing on file at a time, in sequence, however I might have a need for some mixing of audio streams prior to playback.

I can move ahead with my application without this feature but it would be a great improvement in usability at some point.

I hope that helps clarify.

Thanks

[Halle Winkler]

Thank you, it has been great getting this big release out. Your explanation is very helpful. Something I’m currently unsure about is whether echo cancellation needs to be different for different media playback code (e.g. MPMusicPlayerController versus AVAudioPlayer) because I’m unsure if latency is a factor or whether I can always get the buffers of audio slated to play back at the same moment in a global output stream. I’m very early in the process of investigating this, but it’s good timing for this kind of feature request because I’m thinking that the next version should probably be oriented towards polish on areas like interactions with other media objects.

[uzair]

While audio is playing open ear unable to listen user. I want to stop audio by voice but unable to do it

[Halle Winkler]

Recognition is suspended in the precise timeframe that audio is playing out loud because otherwise it is the audio playback that would be recognized, not the speech. If the audio is playing through headphones, recognition is not suspended.

[uzair]

So What I do ?
I want to stop audio through voice control
and I want to make it done !

[Halle Winkler]

Hi,

I’m sorry, this is not the right tone for this forum. Please read this:

https://www.politepix.com/openears/support/#Q_Why_was_a_question_or_a_reply_or_an_account_removed_from_the_forums

If you want to discuss this further, please keep it in one topic only rather than two or more, and please approach it as a collaborative troubleshooting process rather than one where you demand the code and I give it to you. If this is due to working in a second language, I understand that that is challenging, but in that case it’s necessary to find someone who can tell you whether the tone of your post is minimally constructive. Thank you.

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