I tried Simon last night, and I was quite impressed. However, I was using the normal microphone I have positioned under my TV (which I can happily sit and use with Skype whilst sitting 3 metres away) and Simon would not listen to my commands unless I had my head within 4 cm of the microphone.
Clearly this is not sufficiant for HTPC usage (irrespective of noise cancellation), and I refuse to sit wearing a wireless headset whilst watching TV .
Is there an update to the noise cancellation work discussed earlier in this thread?
If any output sound could be distracted from the microphone input, the resulting signal could be amplified unlimited, thus picking up a command a mile away... in theory...
Had a quick look at how to capture output sound at the mixer level... seems complicated...
Would really like to integrate Simon (or some simular plugin) with MP, even if it is just to show off...
Maybe this could help? KinecTunes - Controlling iTunes with your Voice - KinectHacks.net
As far as I understand, the kinect micro itself subtracts the surrounding sounds from your voice, when the official sdk is used.
So maybe, it could be easier to integrate this with some sort of kinect-plugin, that voice and gestures can be used to control mediaportal in general.
I'm not into coding but maybe I could help around with some serious bugtesting, because i got a kinect right here.