Caller ID Plug In?

[exdirtfarmer]

The Phonebot is awesome. Somebody calls my home while I'm at work, I get text message on my cell phone, an email at work and the client pops up on my work PC. Personalized messages base on who is calling and call logs. I tried to get sage to read the RSS data but didn't have success. WAF is also very high on this software.

[Crashless]

It will most likely take Frey giving Studio to the Housebot developers to make a STV import module.

I'm really interested in this product, but can't imagine getting the future wife to sign off on it without some sort of Sage integration (or Meedio....)

[joh3004]

I'm using vonage...so most of the voice mail options that phonebot has is included in my phone service (except being able to give personalized greetings...which is pretty cool).

So, I just want something that will pop up a picture and a name and number on my computer screen. Is phonebot still the best for that?

[kevthor]

*BUMP* I wanted to bump this thread and state I'd be willing to donate $10.00 to anyone who makes a caller ID plug in for use with the PVR350 card. Hopefully we can get a bunch of people willing to throw in 10 bucks and then someone with studio will take on this task.

[nielm]

I dont have modems that do caller Id, nor any of the apps that support modems that do, nor any way of simulating them...

BUT! I could make a 'generic info popup' plugin, that pops up a message box when something external connects+sends some text down a TCP socket (pictures may also be possible if the path to a file is also passed).

So if someone else is willing/able to make the other half (the thing that interfaces to the modem, looks up the number, finds the picture, then connects+sends the info down the socket) there could be a solution to this

[Driftnet]

The caller ID functionality is very nice, but what I have been searching for is a way to automatically pause Sage when an incoming call was detected.

The phone rings, Sage pauses playback, Caller ID displays info on screen.
The user can then resume playback with remote after the call is finished.

The call logging/answering machine stuff is nice but not as important to me as the "pause" function.

[RedR]

Thanks for the input nelim. I'd be almost willing to flip for getting you a modem to help test. I ended up getting the Creative Labs one, since it needs to support Type 2 CallerID. I currently use this software:
http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn/callerid_sentry.htm
Its free, and its great! It works great with sage, and doesn't cause problems with playback or recordings when it overlays the CID info. The problem, no logging at all. Although I've emailed the author asking for such a feature, even if it would be pumped out raw in a CSV of some kind. Then getting it into Sage would be much easier.
Anyway, awesome plugin feature, Im dying for it in network support.

Thanks,
RedR

[nielm]

Driftnet: pausing is easy already: if your caller ID program can run other programs when it gets an incomming call, it can run:

sagetv.exe -event 6

to pause any playback...

RedR, the other problem with modems and caller ID support is that I am in Belgium!

[Crashless]

I think phonebot already sends info over a TCP socket since it has a 'client'. So all we may need is what you're suggesting.

[kevthor]

Originally Posted by Crashless

I think phonebot already sends info over a TCP socket since it has a 'client'. So all we may need is what you're suggesting.

If this is the case are you going to create your OSD Info plugin Nielm?

Thanks,
Kevin

[wazkaren]

This weekend I threw together a quick and dirty app that works on my system. I have a Service that is installed on the computer with the modem. I monitors the modem waiting for a caller id. When it gets a caller id it sends it out via tcpip to a client app. The client app runs on my SageTVClient machine and when it gets a call it will pause sage and then announce the call (using the microsoft text to voice engine). Like I said, it's quick and dirty and written specifically to my modem. It's not a plug-in but it does the trick for me. If anyone wants to give a try you're welcome to it, just let me know.

Greg

[kevthor]

Originally Posted by wazkaren

This weekend I threw together a quick and dirty app that works on my system. I have a Service that is installed on the computer with the modem. I monitors the modem waiting for a caller id. When it gets a caller id it sends it out via tcpip to a client app. The client app runs on my SageTVClient machine and when it gets a call it will pause sage and then announce the call (using the microsoft text to voice engine). Like I said, it's quick and dirty and written specifically to my modem. It's not a plug-in but it does the trick for me. If anyone wants to give a try you're welcome to it, just let me know.

Greg

Sounds great! And I would love to try it but I'm assuming this is not for a hardware decoder video card, such as the PVR350 or Xcard. That is the problem for some of us, all the 3rd party apps that are out there won't display a Sage Menu, which is why we need someone with studio to create a pop up in Sage with the caller ID info. With your program though we may be able to use that inconjuction with Nielms pop up plugin and have a working caller ID plugin!! ......I'm getting excited.....

[nielm]

Here you go for a pre-beta version (attached)
Import it into your current STV (for general info on how to 'install' STV imports, see here)
It should now be listening on localhost:20001 (changeable in the .properties file -- look for nielm/infopopup)

You can test it by telnetting in to localhost 20001 and enter some lines of text. Enter CTRL+] (thats hold down CTRL and press ']') and type close <enter> and the message should pop up in Sage, then disappear after a short timeout.

Bonus features:
Enter the line #pic=c:/path/to/picture/file and the picture will be displayed in the popup (displayed 1:1, not scaled!) ...
Enter the line #timeout=5000 and the specified timeout (in ms) will be used in place of the default 10 secs
eg: (see attached image for results)

c:\> telnet localhost 20001
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to laptop.
Escape character is '^]'.
#pic=c:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\STVs\OriginalV2\folder.png
#timeout=5000
hello
world
<CTRL-]>
telnet> close
Connection closed.

there still needs to be some jam in the sandwich (EDIT: like waskarens' thing!) - that listens to the modem/callerID application and then connects and sends the message to the info popup in Sage...

Astute readers will notice that this info popup can be used for anything (eg IM popups, alarms, etc)...

(I will release this in it's own thread when it matures)

[wazkaren]

I just started using the custom stvs. I'm currently using Cayars stv. Just to make sure I understand: would this popup stv replace Cayars or does the import just add to the current stv?

I'll try to test this out this weekend. My opportunities to play around with my Sage setup are few and far between, the modem is in my wifes computer and Sage is very popular in my house. I have to wait until both the computer and Sage are not being used. And the phone constantly ringing (to test out my modem code) was getting on everyones nerves last weekend.

Greg

[Crashless]

Nielm...that's absolutely awesome. Excellent execution of the idea - it's perfect.

I'm out of excuses now. Time to get a voice modem....

Got it to work first time. I haven't tried it when more than once computer/instance of sage is running the plug-in. I wonder what happens...anyone?

Now to figure out how to integrate the rest of phonebot's functionality...I wonder how that rss.xml might work...

[RedR]

WOOT! Great stuff nielm! And thank you so very much for getting this one out. I can vision quite a few things that this would work for. Once I get my network rewired (tomorrow family allowing) I'll be all over this in many ways.

Thank you again,
RedR

[nielm]

wazkaren: this is an import/patch STV -- it adds functionality to pretty much any existing STV (for general info on how to 'install' it, see here), however I have only tested it with OriginalV2.

Crashless: if more than one instance of Sage/client is running on the same computer, then I believe only the first instance will be able to bind to the port and accept incomming connections...

That is unless you have the multiple clients installed in different directories with different properties files so that you can specify different ports (I believe this is how the MediaMVP user-interface does it)

[Crashless]

Thanks nielm. I had a feeling that's how it would work. Can't have multiple servers listening to the same port.

I've contacted the phonebot developers to figure out how to integrate their program. i'll post if I get any response.

[fafurd]

I tried and it worked great, assuming you are opening telnet on the same box. I tried changing the bind_address to the ip of the system (vs 127.0.0.1) and opened telnet from another computer, but it kept telling me that it could not connect. I even tried restarting Sage. Oh, I was making the change in my SageClient.properties as that's where it was.

[nielm]

for connecting from other computers, change the bind address to 0.0.0.0 (binds to any address), but if you have a sw firewall, you will have to open the port (make sure that you dont open it up to the internet!)