Reading Snippets Of A Book Over The Phone

[SupportTeam]

James wrote:

 

The idea is to allow a caller to sample one or more long books over the

phone. Each of the one or more books will be playing continuously, and a

caller will simply tap in to a particular recording at whatever point it

happens to be when the caller calls in.

 

It should work as follows: the caller dials our toll-free number and

connects to our system ("System" - the one you supply us). The System

should then:

 

1. automatically answer the call and play an outgoing message of 1-2

mins ("Hello and thank you for calling! To hear Book One, press.");

 

2.then automatically connect to a live feed-through for 2-4 minutes

minutes (this is one of the continuously playing CD players or tape

players);

 

3. then automatically disconnect or fade out the live feed-through and

play a short termination message ("Thank you for listening. For

additional information write.");

 

4. then automatically disconnect the call.

 

To start the System, I'd insert my book CD or audiocassette into a CD or

tape player, set the player on "continuous play" mode, and jack it into

the live feed-through port on the machine you supply. If the system had

more than one port, I'd jack additional CD players, each playing

different books, into the other ports. Then I want to walk away and have

it service callers unattended.

 

To summarize: when callers dial in, they'll hear an introductory

message, then 2 to 4 minutes of the book's text at whatever point the

recording happens to be at that moment; then, a short message telling

what to do if more information is desired. At the end, the system

disconnects the caller automatically.

 

Can you help me assemble a system of telephone equipment that will do

this?

[SupportTeam]

You would need to have 2-4 minute sound bites from the CD saved as individual sound files (Wave files). You could split up the entire CD into separate sound files, or just select the more interesting passages and just use those. The fading out at the end of the sound file would be done in the sound file itself - there are many sound editors out there which will easily do all this for you.

 

Then when a call arrives VG could select which of the .WAV files to play, based on time of the call, or randomly select which one should be played.

 

Using this approach callers would be able to select which book to listen to as well...

 

We'd recommend you use a Dialogic card for your system (eg. a D/4PCI card).

 

The script is fairly straightforward and you could probably create it yourself. Please see our WWW from where you can download the fully working evaluation version of the software. The demonstrations supplied will get you running in a matter of minutes.