Launching Videos directly through WMC

[MarkAConley]

Hello Folks,

I have a Blind friend who loves Star Trek and wants to have voice control access to all the ST TV Shows, Movies, through Windows Media Center Video/Movie Library.

I am attempting to create a way for him to launch the Videos and/or Movies directly but saying "Play Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Episode 1"

I originally thought that this would be a simple thing to do by using the following command line: c:\windows\ehome\ehshell.exe d:\movies\Star Trek Deep Space Nine Episode 1.wmv. But that does not work.

Do you know what I am missing? What I am doing incorrectly?

Thanks

 

[barnabas1969]

The Amulet Voice Remote is what you need. Go to Voice Remote Control for Windows Media Center | Amulet Devices.

 

[MarkAConley]

Yes thanks for the reply -- but I cannot get hold of anyone at Amulet Devices. They are not answering emails or phone calls. I don't think they are still doing business.

 

[barnabas1969]

That's odd. I corresponded with them within the last year, and they were very responsive. Have you tried simply purchasing the remote on their site?

 

[MarkAConley]

Yes - I purchased the remote on Oct 8th, 2013. I am trying to follow-up with Amulet to see when the remote will be delivered but as I said they are not responding to emails or phone calls.

Amulet Devices is using paypal for credit card transactions, so I'm following up with paypal as well, to see if they can get a status on the remote delivery or refund my money.

 

[barnabas1969]

Be patient. Shipping time from the UK will take a while. I understand your worry, especially since they aren't responding. I suspect that Amulet Devices is a small company run by one or two people. It's possible that he is on vacation or something. I don't get the impression that he gives bad service. I've heard from several people who own the remote, and all seem happy.

My communication with him was regarding the Amulet Kinect program that he was working on. He stopped development when he discovered that Microsoft prohibited him from charging for his software unless he made the software work exclusively with Kinect for PC. He didn't feel that people would be willing to pay for a Kinect-PC because they are much more expensive than the (technically identical) XBox Kinect device.

He has given his software to someone else who is developing it as freeware, but it is not yet ready for prime time.

 

[MarkAConley]

Thanks for sticking with me -- I received the Amulet device today and will began playing with this evening. I appreciate your information and insights. Thanks again!

 

[barnabas1969]

I'd say that 2 weeks for international shipping via the postal service is pretty typical.

 

[XweAponX]

If you don't have Amulet, but want to do something similar you can try to make a Voice Macro with those commands in it.

Download Windows Speech Recognition Macros from Official Microsoft Download Center

I was able to make some Voice macros that did some fairly sophisticated commands, using the 'Arguments" line

 

[MarkAConley]

Yeah, I was attempting to use the Windows Speech Recognition Macros -- specifically I was attempting to implement Chris Duckworth's solution using the Windows Speech Macros.

It worked for the most part but I could not get it to read back the Movie and TV show Titles in order that my friend could hear them and then make a Movie or TV Show selection. The Amulet software does that and much more.

I'm still testing various voice control solutions in my Home Lab, but so far the Amulet Software seems to be the best.

barnabas1969 mentioned that the Amulet software may be available as freeware at some point (open source I assume)

Which brings me to ask, what programming language in the Amulet software written in?

Also, I guess I should start new discussion?

 

[barnabas1969]

I really wish I had the links to the Kinect project that is being developed as FOSS. I saved them as bookmarks on my laptop, but unfortunately my laptop died... and my Chrome browser was not logged-in to my Google account during that time... so all my bookmarks during that time were lost.

I'm sure if you contact the developers at Amulet, they can point you to the open source project that is being developed. After all, the original source came from Amulet, and Amulet gave it to the open source project.

I actually bought a Kinect PC device to test it, but never had time. Now, I'll have to find the Internet resources for it again. I think it was a project that is related to Media Browser, but the open-source developer was planning to add Media Center functionality too.

It would be super cool to be able to sit on the couch and just talk to the PC with requests that are similar to those available via the Amulet remote.