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Chowmain - Advanced Announcements Driver


alanchow

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How do you control/select which rooms it will play in? Can you create multiple "web announcements" that play in different rooms and choose which one you're recording?

You can create multiple copies of the driver if you require different room combinations though it's probably easiest to use as a broadcast to all rooms.

Try it out using the built in trial licence.

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Anyway to upgrade my recluse version to this without a full repurchase?

Sorry. We are not affiliated to recluse av. recluse av are competitors to chowmain who currently maintain and sell a competing product (text to speech driver).

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So if I understand this correctly, the driver which I bought from this thread cannot be updated to the play online command which is an update to the original driver on this tread?

The chowmain advanced announcements driver (which is linked in this thread was available for purchase from extra vegetables and now Houselogix) has free updates.

The confusion is with a competitors (recluse av)'s text to speech driver which offers similar functionality though not as feauture rich.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Alan - my audio distribution is kind of "complex" at least in my head.  My bedroom, office and bonus room have a Play 1 or Play 3 Sonos speaker.  My living room has its own Sonos connect directly into a local AVR.  My dining room, kitchen and outdoor space have speakers that are ran into a C4 amp, which is hooked into the C4 matrix and has its own Sonos connect.  So its all sonos, some off a connect, some off a connect via a matrix and some just Sonos Hardware.

 

Any limitations on where I can send these announcements?  My Bedroom has a Play 1, could I get a morning announcement read off the Play 1?  If I am not mistaken, I have audio outs on the HC 800 going into either (or both) the audio Matrix and the Sonos connect that is near the Audio Matrix.

 

Thanks.

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Alan - my audio distribution is kind of "complex" at least in my head.  My bedroom, office and bonus room have a Play 1 or Play 3 Sonos speaker.  My living room has its own Sonos connect directly into a local AVR.  My dining room, kitchen and outdoor space have speakers that are ran into a C4 amp, which is hooked into the C4 matrix and has its own Sonos connect.  So its all sonos, some off a connect, some off a connect via a matrix and some just Sonos Hardware.

 

Any limitations on where I can send these announcements?  My Bedroom has a Play 1, could I get a morning announcement read off the Play 1?  If I am not mistaken, I have audio outs on the HC 800 going into either (or both) the audio Matrix and the Sonos connect that is near the Audio Matrix.

 

Thanks.

 

Extra Vegetables actually has an example in their documentation on how to utilise our Advanced Announcements in their documentation so yes you can use it with Sonos.

 

You do not need audio outputs going into sonos from Control4 as Sonos will read the wav file directly.

 

Definately possible for every zone.

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ame="alanchow" post="145299" timestamp="1427742411"]any updates on this?

 

Control4 have not given me an update.  It has been requested though there are quite alot of feature requests by numerous people (dealers, distributors & developers) so it is still up in the air whether or not it will be implemented.

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Extra Vegetables actually has an example in their documentation on how to utilise our Advanced Announcements in their documentation so yes you can use it with Sonos.

 

You do not need audio outputs going into sonos from Control4 as Sonos will read the wav file directly.

 

Definately possible for every zone.

Hi Alan,

 

And they would all be in sync (the Play radios and the in wall speakers using the Sonos connect/C4 Amp/C4 Matrix set up)?  Especially if using the PA function to make an announcement over the system.

 

Thanks!

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Hi Alan,

And they would all be in sync (the Play radios and the in wall speakers using the Sonos connect/C4 Amp/C4 Matrix set up)? Especially if using the PA function to make an announcement over the system.

Thanks!

No they will not. This is because sonos does not have the limitations that control4 does. As such Sonos will play first before Control4.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Alan,

 

I am having some issues trying to program.  My dealer installed the driver but now I am having trouble with our schedules to sync up to get him to program.  So I was trying to hack at it myself.

 

I have Sonos and its around step 10 where my issues pop up.  I am picking the Sonos driver on the events side, but when I go to the actions side to pick announcement I do not see announcement, but I have announcements. If I click on that, I get a list of the announcement files but nothing that looks like your documentation with having to type in a file name.  If I picked the Advanced Announcement driver I do not get that option either.  I am sure I a missing something simple, but after reading and re-reading and staring at my computer for too long of a time, I think I may be glossing over something easy?

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still here plugging away.  something else I noticed, when I start over to follow the directions from scratch - When I am in Agents > Announcements I notice my Master Bedroom (Sonos Play 1) is not "saved".  I can enter any other room, leave that screen and come back and those room(s) are still there, except the Master.  I can try the Master on its own, the Master plus 2 other rooms, etc.  And whenever I leave that screen and come back, the Master is never there, yet if I did Master + 2 other rooms, those other 2 rooms are there.

 

So for now I am trying another room, but still no luck.  For after step 10, I realize I can get that screen shot if I pick a Sonos unit in a particular room.  Yet I do that, type in Advanced Announcement.wav and I am still not getting any audio.  

 

The only text to speech I am converting is Hello Today Is (I did not try a variable for the date, literally just those 3 words, Hello Today Is)

 

I've attached photos of my programming too if anyone can see maybe my slip up.

 

Thanks in advance

post-134790-0-71892500-1432403905_thumb.

post-134790-0-84008500-1432403909_thumb.

post-134790-0-96509600-1432403914_thumb.

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Hi Alan,

 

I am having some issues trying to program.  My dealer installed the driver but now I am having trouble with our schedules to sync up to get him to program.  So I was trying to hack at it myself.

 

I have Sonos and its around step 10 where my issues pop up.  I am picking the Sonos driver on the events side, but when I go to the actions side to pick announcement I do not see announcement, but I have announcements. If I click on that, I get a list of the announcement files but nothing that looks like your documentation with having to type in a file name.  If I picked the Advanced Announcement driver I do not get that option either.  I am sure I a missing something simple, but after reading and re-reading and staring at my computer for too long of a time, I think I may be glossing over something easy?

 

Hi there,

 

Unfortunately we did not do the initial documentation on using sonos with the Advanced Announcements driver.  It was something that extra vegetables did for us when they were our distributors.  I don't have a sonos unit to test this against either so i can't really be of any help.  Your dealer can try and talk to Control4 technical support to see if they can offer some insight for you as they now offer full support for the Sonos driver.

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I have mine going through Sonos.  Not sure if its 15 seconds or not if you use Sonos hardware.

 

That said, it reads me the day, date, time, forecasted hi/low temps, current temps and will check my google calendar.  and it works without being cut off.

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Until Control4 changes the 15 second announcement limitation, this driver is pretty useless, as most announcemets are cutoff, IE: daily weather forcasts

The 15 second announcement only effects control4 hardware not sonos. Having said that though my house reads out 'good morning alan. Today's date is <day>, <ddmmyyyy>. The forecast for today is <forecast> with a minimum of <min> and maximum of <max>. The current temperature inside your home is <temp>.'. This is read out every weekday morning and has done so since I installed the driver when I wrote it without any issues. Fits in nicely and does not cut off via control4's audio output playing voicerss's English female voice.

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  • 1 month later...

A couple of questions:

- SpeechUtil.com appears to be defunct. Can that be replaced with ivona or some other service?

- where is the Advanced Announcements.wav file stored? How can I extract it to a PC?

- when I use the TIME{} variable, it is 12 hours off ... When it is 2pm, it says 2am. I'm guessing that's an issue with the settings in the HC-800 - is that something I can change or does my dealer need to do it?

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A couple of questions:

- SpeechUtil.com appears to be defunct. Can that be replaced with ivona or some other service?

- where is the Advanced Announcements.wav file stored? How can I extract it to a PC?

- when I use the TIME{} variable, it is 12 hours off ... When it is 2pm, it says 2am. I'm guessing that's an issue with the settings in the HC-800 - is that something I can change or does my dealer need to do it?

You are correct seems like there are some issues with speechutil.com not sure if it is site problems or if they plan to not resume the service.

Personally though I utilise voicerss as it utilises natural voices. I suggest using that one

The file is stored in the controllers announcement directory \\ipofdirector\media\announcements

You are correct about the time. Dealer needs to set it for you. 12 hours is a lot as usually it's set to a Timezone. They probably didn't do that when programming the project

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  • 3 weeks later...
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