How to increase prompts quality?

[invoso.com]

Hi,

 

how to increase prompts quality (Europe)? Have You any hints?

We are using GoldWave editor but quality is not good enough.

We have DMV1200BTEPE Dialogic cards.

[SupportTeam]

Best quality recordings are achieved in a recording studio type environment (echo absorbing walls etc.) and with a quality microphone.

Would recommend using professional voice-over and prompt recording professionals ('talents') to create the recordings. They will often have the setup necessary in place already.

Please listen to the sound files that come with VoiceGuide. That is the quality that can be achieved with proper setup.

Ask for the recorded prompts to be delivered in the format that will be used on your system. For European E1 trunks that will be 8kHz A-Law 8-bit. If you use different format then that will need to be converted before being sent out over the E1 connection (to A-Law 8kHz 8-bit) and every conversion adds distortion and 'hiss' to the sound.

Some links to studios/talent that specialize in prompt recordings are on our website here: https://www.voiceguide.com/ivr-software/ivr-callflow-design.htm

[invoso.com]

We found problem,

 

we import prompts Wave A-law 11025 Hz, 88kb/s and in version (7.5.21 - 7.5.6739.39172 2018-06-14 20:45:44.72) playback properly, but not in version (7.6.5 - 7.6.6977.23886 2019-02-07 13:16:12.65) - silence .

 

 

93001.wav

[SupportTeam]

11kHz A-Law files are not supported.

For "A-Law" only 8kHz is supported.

For "11kHz" only PCM format is supported.

"11kHz A-Law" is a very rarely encountered format. It's just not used.

Please see: https://www.voiceguide.com/vghelp/source/html/soundfiles.htm

You should use 8kHz A-Law 8-bit.

If you use "11kHz PCM" then sound data in those files will be converted to 8kHz "A-Law" before being sent out over the E1 ISDN channel. This conversion will add distortion and background 'hiss' to the sound as heard by the other side of the call. 

 

On our test system we found that both v7.5.21 and v7.6.5 did not play the file attached file. Please see traces below:

ktTel trace from v7.5.21:

008 064536.042  2704           ktTel_SR60vista DLL v7.5.21, created: Jun 14 2018, 20:47:11

858 064623.142  2704   5 fn    PlayStart(iLineId=5, sFileList=C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav, sXMLOptions=)
859 064623.146  2704           ExtractFromOptionsXml_Keys iKeysDefLen=0
860 064623.146  2704           ExtractFromOptionsXml_Keys :
861 064623.147  2704   5       PlayStart (hLine=5, strSoundFile=C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav, iPlayId=407305(0x63709), iParam1=0, iParam2=0, zsParam1=, zsParam2=, keys-notused)
862 064623.157  2704   5       play  start (hli=0AC03330, strSoundFile=C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav, iPlayId=407305(0x63709), iParam1=0, iParam2=0, zsParam1=, zsParam2=)
863 064623.162  2704           play  wav: format=6, channels=1, hz=11025, bytes/sec=11025, bytes/sample=1, bits/sample=8, DataBlockSize=96924  C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav
864 064623.163  2704   5       XpbDataFormat: DATA_FORMAT_ALAW, rate_const=0x58, bits=8 (iWavFilesEncodingFormat_LastFile=6)
865 064623.163  2704   5       play  buffer merge add loop hPlayIott_Curr=0x51261f0, ptrVoiceData=0x10398ad0, io_bufp=0x10381020, io_length=96922
866 064623.163  2704   5       play  buffer merge end. calc=96922, copied=96922. hPlayIott_Start=0x5126178
867 064623.164  2704   6       play  curvolume=0 curspeed=0
868 064623.164  2704   5       KeyControlsUsed false
869 064623.164  2704   5       dx_adjsv dev=6, speed, reset => 0 (no speed keys set on play)
870 064623.164  2704   5       play xpb: wDataFormat=3, wFileFormat=1, nSamplesPerSec=0x58, wBitsPerSample=8 ()
871 064623.165  2704   5       play(6, iott=0x5126178 (len=96922, buff=0x10398ad0), tpt=0x0, xpb=0xac0690c) call
872 064623.165  2704   5 ERROR in play call (6, 0x5126178, tpt=0x0, xpb=0xac0690c) => -1, err=6:Parameter error, hli=0AC03330

 

ktTel trace from v7.6.5:

008 064026.411  3032               DLL ktTel_SR60vista v7.6.5, Jan 30 2019 13:35:39

539 064234.071  3032   5   1 fn    PlayStart(iLineId=5, sFileList=C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav, sXMLOptions=)
540 064234.076  3032   5   1       PlayStart (hLine=5, strSoundFile=C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav, iPlayId=697024(0xaa2c0), iParam1=0, iParam2=0, zsParam1=, zsParam2=, keys-notused)
541 064234.091  3032               play  wav: format=6, channels=1, hz=11025, bytes/sec=11025, bytes/sample=1, bits/sample=8, DataBlockSize=96924  C:\Customers\Telestrada\93001.wav
542 064234.092  3032   5   1       XpbDataFormat: DATA_FORMAT_ALAW, rate_const=0x58, bits=8 (iWavFilesEncodingFormat_LastFile=6)
543 064234.092  3032   5   1       play  buffer merge add loop hPlayIott_Curr=0x12c51c0, ptrVoiceData=0x11abba20, io_bufp=0x11aa3f70, io_length=96922
544 064234.092  3032   5   1       play  buffer merge end. calc=96922, copied=96922. hPlayIott_Start=0x12c52d8
545 064234.093  3032   6   1       play  curvolume=0 curspeed=0
546 064234.093  3032   5   1       KeyControlsUsed false
547 064234.093  3032   5   1       dx_adjsv dev=6, speed, reset => 0 (no speed keys set on play)
548 064234.093  3032   5   1       play xpb: wDataFormat=3, wFileFormat=1, nSamplesPerSec=0x58, wBitsPerSample=8 ()
549 064234.094  3032   5   1       play(6, iott=0x12c52d8 (len=96922, buff=0x11abba20), tpt=0x0, xpb=0x10b0d10c) call
550 064234.094  3032   5   1 ERROR in play call (6, 0x12c52d8, tpt=0x0, xpb=0x10b0d10c) => -1, err=6:Parameter error, hli=10B09B20