Telephone Recording

[Michael Jones]

I need some serious help here.

I have to record some training calls that take place on the telephone.
I know I need an interface to do this, and these are the ones I'm looking into:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWA:IT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWA:IT

http://www.fullcompass.com/Products/...349/index.html

I had a little cheapo unit that I got from Rat Shack that didn't work worth a damn - too noisey!

So, if any of those units look reasonable, or you like one in particular, let me have your input please!

OK. That's one obsticle.

The next one is putting these calls up on the web so that people who can't make it to the training call can still hear what's happening. These training calls can be as long as an hour. Obviously, I can edit that for the more salient points, and maybe get the recording down to a half an hour.
But 3 minutes, even at a bit rate of 22,000 and 16 bit is going to be something like 5 meg! So a 30 minute recording is going to be in the neighborhood of 50M! I wouldn't even know how to go about hosting a file of that size.

Any ideas on how to over come this. Obviously, I can reduce the resolution and bit rate, but I think it'd still be somewhere in the double digit meg size.

[Blue Bear Sound]

The JK Audio units are excellent. I recommend those...

As to the clip hosting... you should set yourself up with a webhost that allows short-term or per-use leasing of webserver storage. This way you can provide D/L functions of large files.

I have to do this frequently to send/retrieve VO clips to/from clients... it comes in very handy and is a clean & professional way of handling it (from the client's perspective!)

[manning1]

just an idea michael.
once youve recorded the calls maybe youve thought of this to cut down storage. use a wave to mp3 encoder (eg..lame or another one from hitsquad.com) ...that should cut down the space needs a bit.
or maybe how about sending out cd's to the folks who cant make it to the
training ?? but maybe there are logistics probs in doing that.
other than that, i'm out of ideas. audio files are just so big.

[wimat]

If you call JK, they can point you in the right direction. Pretty easy company to deal with. 1-800-552-8346

[Michael Jones]

We do training calls twice a week, and frequently cover different topics as needed, so they're going to change frequently. That kind of makes sending out CD's inefficient.
What I really want to do is to have the calls stream either in MP3, wav or Real Audio. MP3 will help, but I'm not sure if the host allows uploading of MP3. I know at one time they didn't - that may have changed. I guess... I need to find some kind of free player that I can embed on the web-site. Any ideas on that?

Its just telephone voice, its not like it needs to be of super high quality.

What about putting them on an ftp site? And folks could just go and D/L them?
I transfered and recieved some audio files once to/from a guy and he had this.... I don't even remember what it was called... but it was a Mac type... personal storage.... file retreiving... thing on the 'net.
Like a personal ftp site. Kind of?

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally Posted by Michael Jones

What about putting them on an ftp site? And folks could just go and D/L them?
I transfered and recieved some audio files once to/from a guy and he had this.... I don't even remember what it was called... but it was a Mac type... personal storage.... file retreiving... thing on the 'net.
Like a personal ftp site. Kind of?

I thought I just said that?!?

[Michael Jones]

Blue Bear - you had recomended the JK Audio unit to me before.
Its just a little more than I really wanted to pay for something like that.
I guess if it works - its worth it. I may just have to bite the bullet and shell out the clams for it.

Here's a site that has something similar to what we want to do.
Notice the embeded player.
Now, this is just a site that has something similar. I'm in now way affilated with this person.

http://www.danijohnson.com/seminars/dynasty-sf-ca.html

[Michael Jones]

Originally Posted by Blue Bear Sound

I thought I just said that?!?

DOH!
I guess you did!

[Alexbt]

I don't see why you need an interface.

Any computer with a modern modem and proper software is perfectly capable of monitoring phone conversations and recording them.

I used to do this quite often through my old PowerBook and then my iMac. You'd also be suprised at how well the quality can be.