[arm-allstar] HamVoIP scripts and non-GSM sound files

[Patrick Perdue]

Yes, we've been through all this before. My point is, with some effort, 
which, by the way, I am happy to contribute to, regardless of one's 
preference, sound file will just work. I've personally been asked by 
many hams about what it would take to replace Allison on their personal 
HamVoIP systems and repeaters running HamVoIP as a controller. There are 
sound packs out there already that are license/restriction free, and I 
intend to create more, but, with HamVoIP, it's not just as simple as 
replacing the directory, as for the most part, these files are not in 
.gsm format. One has to also look through all the scripts in 
/usr/local/sbin, and replace those extensions across the board. I wrote 
a script that does this in a loop using sed. This must be done with 
every HamVoIP update if you are using anything but gsm, making it far 
less easy to just slip a replacement sound pack in, since these scripts 
refer to them directly. Anything played using app.rpt without extension 
specified will work fine, but the scripts that concatenate files before 
playing will, of course, fail if those files don't exist.


On 4/18/2020 2:57 PM, "Doug Crompton via ARM-allstar" wrote:
> Let me just further comment on this. We are not in the sound file business.
> Everyone has a like or dislike or preference for certain formats and
> voices. There are many many ways to create voice playable on Hamvoip. Some
> are free and some are cost. We do not support cost formats because most do
> not want to pay and in some cases the cost is rather high. Free stuff is
> out there and you can always use your own voice or someone you know.
> Grabbing demo stuff is another way although we do not condone that. The
> bottom line is we cannot satisfy everyone in this regard. The Asterisk
> voices are there to use. If you want to use something else you can. If
> something else becomes popular we could offer it as an alternative in the
> future. Also with all this talk about dedicated commercial repeater
> controllers vs. Hamvoip there is no comparison in the audio formats,
> availability, and ease of use being many orders of magnitude better in
> Hamvoip.
>
> *73 Doug, WA3DSP*
> *http://wa3dsp.org <http://wa3dsp.org>*
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 2:43 PM Doug Crompton <wa3dsp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Patrick,
>>
>>     I doubt this is ever going to happen. Each sound format has its own
>> pluses and minues. There is a conversion program offered to convert several
>> formats to Ulaw - convert_audio.sh in our distribution. This converts gsm,
>> signed linear, and wav to ulaw. The help screen is shown below. Format
>> conversion is also available at a number of online sites and even Asterisk
>> itself in the client has audio conversion capability. We all create sound
>> files in different ways just like we all program in different ways. You are
>> completely allowed to do whatever you want in that regard. If you don't
>> like the format the sound files are in they can be converted or they are
>> available in different formats directly from Digium or other sites for
>> download.
>>
>> # convert_audio.sh
>>
>>   Convert wav file to Asterisk/Allstar formats
>>
>>     convert_audio.sh <input file.wav> [output_filename]
>>
>>     Input file must be .wav, output file is input filename.ul, .gsm, or sln
>>     unless different second parameter filename is given.
>>
>> *73 Doug, WA3DSP*
>> *http://wa3dsp.org <http://wa3dsp.org>*
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 1:30 PM "Patrick Perdue via ARM-allstar" <
>> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all:
>>>
>>> It occurs to me that, if you, like myself, use sound files that are not
>>> in .gsm format, lots ofHamVoIP specific scripts will not work.
>>>
>>> It could be, and has been argued that we should all just use GSM,
>>> because it's smaller, and everything is already set up for that, but
>>> some things, like the RC-850 sound pack, really just sound better, even
>>> over the tinniest of HT's, in ulaw format.
>>>
>>> Thus, I propose a change to the HamVoIP scripts that play sound files to
>>> the node so that, no matter if your sounds are gsm, ulaw or sln, that
>>> they will continue to work without having to do a wholesale find/replace
>>> of .gsm to.ulaw or .sln, which reverts every time a HamVoIP update
>>> happens.
>>>
>>> I'm not the greatest shell scripter out there, but basically, I would do
>>> something like this...
>>>
>>> Look for a specific base filename (without extension) in
>>> /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/rpt. Let's use connected as an example. Extract
>>> the file extension of connect.gsm or connected.ulaw, which ever is in
>>> the path, and export as a variable, say, $extn. Then, instead of
>>> localplay /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/rpt/connected.gsm, localplay
>>> /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/rpt/connected.$extn. This export of file
>>> extension as a variable could be done for each script individually, or
>>> with a one-time run script that runs at boot, or maybe when Asterisk is
>>> loaded. Of course, this assumes that every sound file in
>>> /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/rpt is in the same format as every other file
>>> in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds, so it isn't necessarily fool-proof.
>>>
>>> Just an idea.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>> ARM-allstar mailing list
>>> ARM-allstar at hamvoip.org
>>> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>>>
>>> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3/4 web page - http://hamvoip.org
>>>
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