Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Quality of recorded audio conference calls

This is related to my post below. A little gripe about the quality of some recorded audio conference calls.

If I ever owned a big company and wanted to start comparing conference calling plans with several different conference calling companies, and I wanted to offer downloadable versions for those who missed the call... I would want to sample the quality of other calls that a certain calling company has previously recorded. They don't even have to be real calls, just demo calls with people connecting to the call from across the globe.

Like I said in my post below, I've never attended a live conference call before, I've only listened to ones that have been pre-recorded. Very often, the calls I've heard have such terrible quality that you can barely even hear the person speaking sometimes. I don't know whether that has to do with the kind of telephone a person is using or if they're using a VOIP connection or what.

But if I was paying conference calling centers to record the calls for me, I would expect them to at least try to enhance the audio quality of the downloadable version. I don't want it to sound like people are buried underground or something. If it's a service I'm paying for, even if the poor audio quality is on my end, I'd want to at least get my money's worth and have a great clarity, enhanced recorded versions of my conference calls.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Audio conference calling

I've always heard pre-recorded conference calls before. I've never actually attended a live audio conference call. One reason is I'm not around during the time of the scheduled conference call. And another reason is because the number you need to listen in on or participate in the call is almost always a long distance phone number for me.

We don't have long distance calling plan at home and I don't want to use up my cell phone minutes just to attend a call. I wish these conference calling services or conference calling centers would offer toll free numbers that you could dial into. If people are already shelling out the bucks to pay a conference calling company to host their calls, they can at least offer an 800 number for people who want to participate. Maybe there are conference calling plans that offer toll-free numbers, but they're probably more expensive to use. I don't really know since I've never had to compare prices for such a service.

Maybe I should look into a VOIP service or something that would allow me to make calls using my computer. It'd really be nice to be able to get in on a live call for once and not have to wait a day or two for the downloadable version of a call to be available because then you're behind everybody else in learning what the big news was.