VR using AP800 questions

IVB

Senior Member
Didn't want to pollute the other thread any more on VR stuff.

Ano/etc: I just got a cheap AP800 off eBay(as-is), looks like it comes with only 1 cable (looks like a power cable). What pieces of hardware do I need to make this thing go? (ie, do I just get a mic to test with? Suggestions on which mic? Anything else?)

Any other tips would also be great. No idea if this stuff actually works, but it'll be an interesting test.
 
One more question: Just read through the serial protocol, seems to be a ton of config stuff, not much relevant in the way of runtime (well, maybe the mute stuff).

Am i reading that wrong? Otherwise, if there's a ClearOne software utility to do the config, I woudn't actually need a driver for the mixer; I could look at how to integrate the VR (either M$ VR or Dragon) into CQC. Am I missing something?
 
The professional mics will all have three wire connections (usually in an xlr connection). The wires are Bias, Audio, and Shield I believe.

You will need to get an XLR female plug (the mics will have the male XLR connector) and some mic wire and wire the xlr plug on one end and the three pin phoenix plug at the AP800 end. Radio Shack will have the XLR connectors and probably even the mic wire if you need someplace to get the stuff quick. Otherwise see about ordering those parts where you get the mics. They surely will carry parts if they are selling mics and it will probably cost less than Ratshack.

I found this document from Shure that might help explain the wiring.
http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/us_..._connectingmics
 
With the AP800 serial protocol you can control everything you can control manually. Which commands you will use really depends on what you want to do. I use a few. GAIN commands allow you to change the volume level. Some messages are spoken loud. some soft.

The MATRIX command can also do alot. Basically the AP800 is a 12 X 12 matrix where any input can be connected to any output, If you change this you can control which mics and/or speakers do what you want. Then I think there is a GATE command that will report back on which mics are gated on.

The instructions are deciptive, because some commands can do a lot. You can also control the AP800 with hardware inputs and/or outputs. VERY flexible. I've to date only used 5% of what it can actually do.
 
Boundary mics generally use an XLR connector, but I've just soldered wires to them directly without a problem. Radio Shack has XLR connectors for about $7.

Going from a differential mic, like a PZM-11 to the AP800 is easy. You just need two conductors and a shield. Going to the AP800 or from the AP800 to a PC is a bit trickier. There are a few ways to do it, but I think the best way is to use a device called a ART CleanBOX RCA to XLR converter. You can get them on e-Bay for about $30 and you probably only need one. I have heard of people doing it without one of these, but you are risking noise. What this device does is convert to and from professional audio like the AP800 uses, to consumer audio like we are used to.
 
Hint for the lurkers: If you buy an AP800 off eBay, check the firmware level.

The $51 I bought has a Ver1.00 firmware level. (they're *far* past that now). I'm having difficulties upgrading it, got an email into ClearOne to see if it's even possible to upgrade the firmware on the original ones. Apparently you need at least Ver2.4 in order to do (something, blanking right now on what).
 
I've only seen ver. 2.4 and 2.4e. I'm thought that every AP800 could be updated to at least 2.4, but I may be wrong. I have one with 2.4 and another with 2.4e, and can't see any difference between them.

To upgrade, you need to download the free APWare program from the ClearOne site. Its the APWare program that upgrades the firmware for you. Are you using APWare, and can you get it connected to the AP800?


Hint for the lurkers: If you buy an AP800 off eBay, check the firmware level.

The $51 I bought has a Ver1.00 firmware level. (they're *far* past that now). I'm having difficulties upgrading it, got an email into ClearOne to see if it's even possible to upgrade the firmware on the original ones. Apparently you need at least Ver2.4 in order to do (something, blanking right now on what).
 
I downloaded APWare, but couldn't get it connected. I was using an RJ45->DB9 adapters which only had pins 1-8, but I just noticed in the manual about how you need all 9 pins connected. PITA. You only need pins 1-8 for regular RS232 comm (according to the manual). I'll see if I have a M/F straight thru cable, it would suck to have to buy one just for the 14 seconds I need to update the firmware.

But, color me impressed - the C1 guys already replied to my tech support indicating the same thing. Damn that's speedy turnaround given that I didn't even buy squat from them.
 
APWare ain't the greatest software program ever designed, and in fact, it was designed before Windows XP came out. Its not unusual to require 3 or 4 attempts before it will actually connect. Once the world starts spinning, your in business.

I'm surprised it takes more than 3 pins. The ClearOne folks say you need hardware handshaking, but it seems to work as poorly with or without it. (It still only connects every 3 or 4 times.)

I downloaded APWare, but couldn't get it connected. I was using an RJ45->DB9 adapters which only had pins 1-8, but I just noticed in the manual about how you need all 9 pins connected. PITA. You only need pins 1-8 for regular RS232 comm (according to the manual). I'll see if I have a M/F straight thru cable, it would suck to have to buy one just for the 14 seconds I need to update the firmware.

But, color me impressed - the C1 guys already replied to my tech support indicating the same thing. Damn that's speedy turnaround given that I didn't even buy squat from them.
 
Hoho! I am now at Firmware V2.40, and I can connect via HyperTerminal! Not too shabby for $51. Of course, the mic hasn't gotten here yet, let's hope this thing actually works, and not just via the serial port.

Plus, the protocol looks pretty dead bang simple, except for the pesky pick a mic # for each command otherwise i'd be able to bang out a PDL driver for CQC within a few mandays. I say mandays as I have that security 101 thing on Sat, plus a boatload of day job work this week, so i'm not sure how much time i'll have to brush up on my PDL skills. I haven't touched PDL since last Jan, 16 months is a long time to forget that which I didn't really know too well in the first place.

Regardless, let's see if I can get an AP800 driver for CQC done in 4-6 weeks, and see if I can't get this into the CQC V2.2 build. Of course, that's a loooong way from actually doing any VR, but at least being able to control the mixer is step 1.
 
Protocol is pretty easy, but the hard part is figuring out what you want to do. For VR, I pretty much let the AP800 run by itself, as there really isn't anything that needs to be "controlled" here. You might want to use a command to find out which mic is picking up voice. Eventually I plan to do that, so my replies only go to the speaker near that mic. I mainly use my AP800 to switch speakers.
 
Well, as I wait for Squintz to create the AP800 driver for me, I opted to muck around a little. Tee Hee Hee, lookie ma, behold the power of my voice! No hands!

I have 10% accuracy to turn my lights on with a ludicriously simple "lights" command using a $10 VRCommander package (i'm on the free trial as I didn't want to pony up the $10) and a cheap $15 computer headset/mic. I can't get it to recognize "lights off" but "lights on" and "lights" seem to work.

It was all pretty righteously simple, albeit highly inaccurate and pretty fragile. I setup a keymapping in CQC so that it would turn on the lights on a shift-F2, then I setup a command in VRCommander so that when I said "lights on" it would send S-F2 to CQC.

Pretty simplistic, but 2 points of issues so far:
1) VRCommander can't understand "lights off", but it can understand "lights on". But this is from a headset 2" from my mouth, and I ain't walkin around with that.
2) In order to do a keystroke command from within CQC, either the Admin Interface or the Interface Viewer needs to have focus. This has a ramification on which PC I put the AP800 at as the HTPC will obviously have video running, and I wouldn't want the whole VR system to be down just because of that.

#2 isn't a huge issue, as the server is headless so it letting the AI be the focus program isn't a problem, but it is point of failure.

Anyhow, i'm just mucking around anyhow until the AP800 driver gets done, at which point i'll try something better than a $15 headset. I may also see if I can find someone who has Dragon Preferred to see if it can translate a voice command into a keystroke (ie, shift-F2).

But it was geeky cool to see the lights turn on by the sound of my voice :)

Here's 2 screenshots first is of VRCommander, second is CQC.

vrcommander.JPG


keymappings.JPG
 
What about girder? It supports the VR engine, and does a really good job, I used to rely on it for my in-car VR.
 
Most applications simply use the VR engine which comes with Windows XP. Girder does this as well (as does Homeseer, etc). The reason I mentioned Girder is because it is pretty flexible, and would probably be easy to interface with CQC.
 
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