• Registered: 2009-12-30
  • Posts: 8

Topic: Widget not making sound on Chumby...

I made a talking clock that should say the time when the screen is tapped.

http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/Rect … ng%20Clock

It works flawlessly on the preview screen (link above),  it almost works in a virtual chumby, and it makes no sound on a real chumby.  What am I doing wrong?

I have an invisible button (alpha 1%) covering the entire screen that flickers black on a mouse down, just to see if it was a button problem.  It flickers as expected in all cases.  The button has an on(press) handler that gets the date (hour, minutes, etc) and builds an array of sounds.  then it uses setInterval to say a sound from the array every 600ms.

So, if the time is 1:23pm it would say "one... twenty... three... pm".

I don't see any problems with my script (although I'm used to AS3, so I may be doing something wrong).  In a virtual Chumby, it sounds like there's a problem with the setInterval because it will only say part of the time.  But in the real Chumby it doesn't say anything.

It's built in Flash CS4, saved as Flash 7, 8, Flash Lite 3.1 (they all give the same results).
320 x 240, 12 fps, etc.

Any help is appreciated!  Thanks!

  • Registered: 2009-12-28
  • Posts: 6

Re: Widget not making sound on Chumby...

Though I cannot help you much with your problem I wanted to write to tell you a few things.

First of all, tehre is information on setting up the sound system here: http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?pid=21940#p21940  also, I wonder if perhaps you are trying to play an unsupported or strangely formatted sound file.

But your clock is my favorite on the device.  I am glad to see you post since your widget seems to have disappeared from the catalog.  Even the link you just posted is broken.

I am a professional audio engineer, and would love to help with audio part of the project if you need it.  I would be glad to record, edit or prepare any audio for this project.

Nevertheless thanks for the clock!

  • Registered: 2009-12-30
  • Posts: 8

Re: Widget not making sound on Chumby...

Thanks, cAPSLOCK!  I'm glad to hear that you like my first attempt at a Chumby widget!

I suspect you're right, it is a problem with the audio files.  I think the original files were Wav files with a variable bit rate.  Then Flash embeds and compresses them with the "speach" setting at 22kHz.

I made the audio files myself with the built in mic on my laptop, but I'm not an audio engineer.  (Is that what I really sound like?!)  I'd prefer a female voice for the clock, or the ability for the user to choose female or male.

I just re-uploaded it and confirmed that it was public.  The latest version does not have the logo just below the hands.  It was private for a while so I could sort out the problem, but I made it public for this thread.  I suspect that the link should work soon... caching issues, you know.

cAPSLOCK, if you're willing to create some audio files, I'd be very grateful.  I would need these:

"oh", "one", "two", "three", . . . "nineteen", "twenty", "thirty", "forty", "fifty", "am", "pm" (26 sound files)

Can someone tell me what kind of audio will work embeded in a Chumby widget?

Thanks!

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: Widget not making sound on Chumby...

Ahh - don't use the "speech" setting - I think that uses the Nelly Moser codec which is not supported by Flash Lite.

Try one of the various MP3-type settings.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2009-12-30
  • Posts: 8

Re: Widget not making sound on Chumby...

Who hoo!  We have sound!

That was it - don't use the Speech setting for sounds.  Thank you everyone for all your help!