ZedHears

ZedHears is a utility (run on Mac OS X) that monitors the default system audio input (hopefully internal microphone or another microphone in your theatre) for changing audio levels. It attempts to maintain a comfortable and generally consistent level of volume for your network-controllable Home Theatre receiver.

Please note: as of 27th May, 2013, only Mac OS version of ZedHears is available. Linux-compatible (ALSA input) version is still planned for the future sometime.

Current Features:

• Monitor the default system audio input for volume level activity.
• Push volume level of VSX-1022-K (or compatible) receiver up or down by 5 levels (of 80) if approximately 10dB of volume change is detected in environment over 10 second period.
• Has thresholds to ensure volume increase does not go above levels observed to hurt human hearing.
• Has thresholds to ensure volume decrease does not go below levels observed to be much too silent.

Planned Features:

• Add "regular recalibration" to take a sample regularly of the "nominal normal" level of observed volume.
• Change logic to use "regular recalibration" results to make the adjustment behavior actually a more-reliable type of volume normalisation.
• Add check to ensure we react if user manually changes volume level of receiver.
• Add check to attempt to be able to more accurately increment and decrement volume when needed.