Recording Interviews on Computer?

[mik...@hotmail.com]

Greetings,

I work in radio and have a question about recording telephone interviews, on desktop computers. Hopefully, someone here might have a suggestion or two.

Until recently, we used a method--while not really professional, worked pretty well. We were able to patch our desk phones into our computer's line in and using Adobe Audition, we could record interviews & edit them.

(Our engineers built neat little interfaces for us--worked great!)

So now, our parent university is forcing units to move to Microsoft's "Lync" internet telephone system, and we're losing our trusty "copper" phone lines. Our telephones now work through our PC's.

The problem is--we can't figure out how to make Lync work, so that we can continue to record interviews at our desks. The problem could be that the computers we use have only the standard issue sound card and do NOT have a professional sound card. At least, that's a suggestion a friend offered.

Another problem--even if you start recording in Audition, when you open Lync to place your call, it stops Audition! So, our problem is complex...and may not be easily solved.

Does anyone here know how folks in similar situations are recording interviews on their desk top PC's? Or--is it even possible with an internet phone system, such as Lync?

Granted, we do have production studios & can do our interviews there. But, the convenience of being able to record short interviews at your desk is valuable....and we don't want to lose this capability.

We're out of ideas, so I thought I'd post the question here....

Thanks in advance!

Mike

[Tobiah]

> Another problem--even if you start recording in Audition, when you open Lync to place your call, it stops Audition! So, our
> problem is complex...and may not be easily solved.

I'm not familiar with Lync, but it seems that it would be a gross
oversight if this software did not already have the capability of
recording the calls. I googled "Lync record conversation" and got
enough hits that it seems that it may have the capability.

Tobiah

[Sylvain Robitaille]

On Thu, 7 Feb 2013 11:46:43 -0800 (PST), mik...@hotmail.com wrote:

> ... our parent university is forcing units to move to Microsoft's

> "Lync" internet telephone system, and we're losing our trusty

> "copper" phone lines. ...

>
> we can't figure out how to make Lync work, so that we can continue

> to record interviews at our desks. ...

Sounds like a question that should be asked of the vendor, or perhaps
of someone at the parent university who has some channel to the vendor,
and was involved in the purchasing decision. They sold the product,
presumably with the promise that it would "work just like your existing
telephone system", so it should be possible to have them provide a
suitable solution to this problem.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille s...@encs.concordia.ca

Systems analyst / AITS Concordia University
Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Tom McCreadie]

mik...@hotmail.com wrote:

>Another problem--even if you start recording in Audition, when you open Lync to place your call, it stops Audition! So, our problem is complex...and may not be easily solved.

In Audition, try: > Edit > Audio Hardware Setup > uncheck the box "Release
ASIO Driver in Background"
(and uncheck it in all 3 tabs: Edit View, Multitrack View, Surround Encoder)

[mik...@hotmail.com]

Thanks---yes, the software is apparently capable of this, but we are blocked from using it over concerns regarding "liability issues." This policy is campus-wide & not just for us.

Granted, being a news/media organization, such a limitation might seem odd. But, we still have to work under the rules and policies of our parent university.

Thus, our search for another solution....

Mike

[mik...@hotmail.com]

Thanks--I'll give that a try. I did try this--sort of. However, I only tried it in the Edit View...and did not configure this way in Multitrack & Surround, too. I'll try that today & see if I have better luck.

Thanks!

Mike

[Scott Dorsey]

<mik...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Thanks---yes, the software is apparently capable of this, but we are blocked from using it over concerns regarding "liability issues." This policy is campus-wide & not just for us.
>
>Granted, being a news/media organization, such a limitation might seem odd. But, we still have to work under the rules and policies of our parent university.
>
>Thus, our search for another solution....

Well, there are a bunch of audio applications that will intercept audio
sent to the Windows mixer and record it as a file.

But... from my perspective I would be very worried about the whole thing
due to reliability and audio fidelity concerns. I would ask if it was
possible to order up a single analogue line (as used for fax machines and
the like) from your campus phone guys. What happens if there is an emergency
and all the campus phones go out? You'd want to get an interview with the
telecom guys immediately and you wouldn't be able to.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[mik...@hotmail.com]

Thanks for the reply! I think I've resolved myself to the fact that we won't be able to easily do this, with our current hardware setup. So, I have been looking at a couple small programs that will record VOIP calls--since that is basically what we're really doing. That might be the simplest solution.

I don't know how good the audio quality is....but, as long as it's not a step backwards from where we were, it would be OK. All telephone interviews sound crummy on the air....but are sometimes necessary.

We've been able to successfully hang onto a few copper lines, to be used with critical monitoring systems (loss of audio, etc.). However, we were not allowed to keep these types of lines for the news staff. That's too bad.

There are some significant limitations with these types of phone systems. For example, dialing "911" in an emergency doesn't work the same way. We're advised to use a copper line or cell phone to do this. Neat, eh?

Thanks again,

Mike

[Scott Dorsey]

<mik...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Thanks for the reply! I think I've resolved myself to the fact that we won=
>'t be able to easily do this, with our current hardware setup. So, I have =
>been looking at a couple small programs that will record VOIP calls--since =
>that is basically what we're really doing. That might be the simplest solu=
>tion.

Anything that will record from the windows mixer ought to be able to do it
although the levels could be weird.

>I don't know how good the audio quality is....but, as long as it's not a st=
>ep backwards from where we were, it would be OK. All telephone interviews =

>sound crummy on the air....but are sometimes necessary.

The audio quality will be a big step backwards from a POTS line, but by
the same token the problems with keeping levels constant between the two
speakers will be greatly reduced.

>We've been able to successfully hang onto a few copper lines, to be used wi=
>th critical monitoring systems (loss of audio, etc.). However, we were not=

> allowed to keep these types of lines for the news staff. That's too bad.

Odds are it costs them a lot more money to keep an actual phone pair up.

>There are some significant limitations with these types of phone systems. =
>For example, dialing "911" in an emergency doesn't work the same way. We'r=

>e advised to use a copper line or cell phone to do this. Neat, eh?

I think the popularity of cellphones has done a lot to make campus telecom
guys less worried about availability of telephones in emergencies. I think
that's bad, but that's just me. From my perspective, the problem is that
cellphones and most VoIP systems just sound godawful.

In most of the rest of the world, you can order a "high definition" cellphone
connection with reduced compression and increased bandwidth. These are very,
very popular with broadcasters doing interview recording work outside the US,
but none of the US providers can supply it.

[mik...@hotmail.com]

Regarding cell phone audio quality, I agree 100%--it's horrible for broadcast purposes! We have live call-in programs on both our Radio and TV stations and over the past several years--as cell phone use has skyrocketed, we've all cringed and the lousy quality on some of these calls! Just awful!!

Having said that---Telos makes a studio telephone interface that does a pretty good job of compensating for cell audio quality. So far, we've only equipped one of our production studios with the new unit. We wanted to see how well it works, before purchasing units for our other studios. It makes a significant improvement in the audio quality, so we'll be upgrading our other rooms.

I've also read about HD Voice....it's on the horizon for the USA, but probably still a couple years away.

Oh yeah....I wouldn't mind using my cell phone for emergency calls....but we can't use them in the studio areas--no signal!! (?!?!?!?!)

Mike

[Chuck]

On our campus, they just replaced our phones with Cisco video phones.
The audio frequency response is appallingly bad. I have Vonnage at
home and the higher frequencies are much flatter. The ringer is so
soft that it is overwhelmed by the fan noise in our control room. I
love progress and being able to look up the nostrils of our on campus
callers. Chuck

[mcp6453]

Download a free trial of Total Recorder from http://totalrecorder.com. Once you
install it, but sure to enable the telephony drivers. It will probably do what
you want.

[Marc Wielage]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 10:59:20 -0800, Scott Dorsey wrote
(in article <kf3hu8$kvf$1...@panix2.panix.com>):

> In most of the rest of the world, you can order a "high definition" cellphone
> connection with reduced compression and increased bandwidth. These are very,
> very popular with broadcasters doing interview recording work outside the US,
> but none of the US providers can supply it.

>------------------------------<snip>------------------------------<

Scott is 100% correct:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/18/america-land-of-the-crummy-sounding-
cell-phone/


--MFW

[Neil Gould]

mik...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> Thanks---yes, the software is apparently capable of this, but we are
> blocked from using it over concerns regarding "liability issues."
> This policy is campus-wide & not just for us.
>
> Granted, being a news/media organization, such a limitation might
> seem odd. But, we still have to work under the rules and policies of
> our parent university.
>
> Thus, our search for another solution....
>

Wait a second... you're searching for a solution that will create exactly
the same "liability" as the capability that is already built into your
system? Perhaps a talk with those who came up with those regulations is in
order.

--
best regards,

Neil

[Scott Dorsey]

Neil Gould <ne...@myplaceofwork.com> wrote:
>mik...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Thanks---yes, the software is apparently capable of this, but we are
>> blocked from using it over concerns regarding "liability issues."
>> This policy is campus-wide & not just for us.
>>

>Wait a second... you're searching for a solution that will create exactly
>the same "liability" as the capability that is already built into your
>system? Perhaps a talk with those who came up with those regulations is in
>order.

And this, sadly, is the nature of bureaucracy. People at the top of the
pyramid have no idea how people at the bottom actually work, and they make
rules that sound perfectly reasonable to them. People at the bottom of the
pyramid have to figure out how to get work done given the conditions they
are handed from above.

[Neil Gould]

Yep... BTDT. However, trying to "covertly" circumvent such regulations can
place folks that didn't make the decision to find a work-around in jeopardy,
since whenever the practice is discovered, they'll likely be held
responsible, and that could affect them for the rest of their lives.

If faced with this situation, I'd contact the administration in writing,
explaining that their decision resulted in a loss of a previous capability
that was a normal part of operations. If they have a problem with restoring
the capability to record phone conversations at the station, the next best
option is to change the programming to conform to the regulations.

--
best regards,

Neil

[Adrian Tuddenham]

...or give out the administrator's own number as the station contact
number for 'phone-ins. :-)


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

[mcp6453]

Fixed link, I hope.

>
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/18/america-land-of-the-crummy-sounding-cell-phone/

[Ralph Barone]

Funny how they talk about upgrading an 8 kbps voice channel to 16 kbps,
when they used to be 64 kbps.

[Les Cargill]

32 kbps ADPCM really. People wanted wireless. *Shrug*.


--
Les Cargill