Recording a live webinar by GoToMeeting, Zoom, or TEAMS can be a daunting task to someone who doesn’t know the ins and outs of video frame rates, resolutions, and codecs.  We developed our webinar recording service for businesses and podcasters that either don’t have the technical expertise or don’t have the time to learn.

Why Hire a Professional to Record a Webinar?

We’ve done extensive testing to find the best method to record webinars.  Here are the highlights.

1. We capture the entire screen with the best video codec.
2. We record PowerPoint animations, cursor movements and desktop sharing.
3. All elements are in high definition.
4. Audio editing and video editing are available.
5. Output is typically .mp4, .wmv, or almost any audio/video format available.

We produce the best, highest-quality, highest-resolution webinar recordings possible.

If you don’t already have a web conferencing service, we can help with that too.

Give us a try today.

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Years ago, web conferencing was in it’s infancy, and all audio conference calling was full-service.  To make a reservation, one needed to physically call the company to set up a conference call.  If you were lucky, the reservationist might discuss with you the ins & outs of having a successful event.  The actual conference was handled by one or more support specialists who would answer all incoming lines and connect them to your meeting.  If you felt the need to complement or complain to the company about how your call was handled, you’d once again pick up the phone to talk with a customer service agent.

While full-service continues to be a big part of the market, self-service is growing  increasingly important.  Customers want to learn about products online, sign up for services via a website, and even use their conference call account without ever contacting another human being.

Among CSPs (Conferencing Service Providers), PGi is leading the way in ensuring a quality self-service experience.  This is but one reason why we have chosen to be one of their premier agents.

View PGi’s premier self-service audio conferencing service here.

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Begin Press Release
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PGi Sells Fax Business to Become a Pure Play Virtual Meetings Company

Company to Use Portion of Proceeds to Reduce Debt

ATLANTA, October 21, 2010 – Premiere Global Services, Inc. (NYSE: PGI) today announced that it is focusing its strategy on virtual meetings with the completed sale of its PGiSend messaging business through the divestiture of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Xpedite Systems, LLC, and certain other assets to EasyLink Services International Corporation (NASDAQ: ESIC) for $105 million in cash.

PGi intends to use a portion of the proceeds from the transaction to repay certain borrowings under its credit facility, including retiring its $50 million Term A loan, and to pay certain transaction fees and closing costs.  The company currently intends to continue its investment strategy of pursuing strategic acquisitions and opportunistically repurchasing shares of its common stock.

“The global meetings and collaboration market is growing in size and importance, and it’s clear why. Today, meetings fuel both business and our daily lives,” said Boland T. Jones, PGi founder, chairman and CEO.  “Meetings that were initially reserved for corporate executives have become a cultural phenomenon, and virtual collaboration technologies are now paramount in getting business done.”

“By selling our fax business, we can now focus one hundred percent of our time, attention and resources on furthering our lead in the virtual meetings market,” continued Jones. “PGi is pouring all of our creativity into new technologies that enable people to collaborate and come together in more enjoyable and productive ways.  We are thrilled with the positive customer reaction to our next generation collaboration product, iMeet® — the first of many new innovations to come.”

About Premiere Global Services, Inc. │ PGi

PGi is a global software and services company that enables real-time, virtual meetings.  For almost 20 years, we have innovated technologies to empower people to connect, collaborate and come together in more enjoyable and productive ways. Every month, we bring together over 15 million people in nearly 4 million virtual meetings. Headquartered in Atlanta, PGi has a presence in 24 countries worldwide and an established base of greater than 30,000 customers, including 75% of the Fortune 100.  For more information, visit us at www.pgi.com.

Statements made in this press release, other than those concerning historical information, should be considered forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are made based on management’s current expectations or beliefs as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. A variety of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in Premiere Global Services, Inc.’s forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following factors: competitive pressures, including pricing pressures; technological changes; the development of alternatives to our services; general domestic and international economic, business or political conditions; risks associated with challenging global economic conditions or a prolonged recession, including customer consolidations, restructuring, bankruptcies or payment defaults; market acceptance of our new services and enhancements, including iMeet; our ability to complete acquisitions and successfully integrate acquired operations; concerns regarding the security of sending information over the Internet and public networks; our ability to upgrade our equipment or increase our network capacity; service interruptions; our dependence on telecommunications supply agreements; our ability to service financial leverage; our dependence on our subsidiaries for cash flow; future write-downs of goodwill or other intangible assets; assessments of income, sales and other taxes for which we have not accrued; our ability to attract and retain key personnel; our ability to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property rights; our ability to successfully manage the impact of the divestiture of our PGiSend business, including any financial impact from the loss of PGiSend revenue or earnings; possible adverse results of pending or future litigation or infringement claims; federal,  state or international legislative or regulatory changes, including further government regulations applicable to traditional telecommunications service providers; risks associated with international operations and fluctuations in currency exchange rates; changes in and the successful execution of restructuring and cost reduction initiatives and the market reaction thereto and other factors described from time to time in our press releases, reports and other filings with the SEC, including but not limited to the “Risk Factors” sections of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009 and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2010. All forward-looking statements attributable to us or a person acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

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Free Conference Call Services Can be Very Tempting

Our customers sometimes ask if we use one specific conference call service to get the best quality conference call recording.  The answer is both yes and no.

Clearly, the quality varies between conference call services.  PGi (Premiere Global Services) has the best audio quality we’ve heard, so we became an agent and have access to all their audio and web conferencing products.  However, we’ve also used several free conference call companies, because many times our customers already have accounts with a vendor—FreeConference.com and FreeConferenceCall.com seem to be the most popular.

There are several problems with free conference call services, and some can effect the quality of your recording.

What are the problems with free conference call services?

1. Many providers move the dial-in number from city to city—most likely because they are chasing the cheapest rates on their end.  I’ve also heard that they make money by routing callers to specific local exchange carriers.  This means that your “permanent” dial-in number is not so “permanent” after all.
2. Free conference call services use toll numbers, so you and your participants will pay long distance charges for the duration of the call.
3. Many times the call quality is poor.  Conference bridge quality can be good, or not-so-good.  Which do you think the free services are using?
4. Just about all of them charge excessively for anything other than a simple conference call.  That means they are expecting you to upgrade when you figure out that the service is not really free (see #2 above and consider how #3 can effect the definition of your brand).
5. A big limitation is the feature set.  Compare free conference call services to PGi’s GlobalMeet and you will see a huge difference.  For example, did you know that GlobalMeet has a web interface/control feature that gives you the ability to see a noisy phone line and mute it with a click of a button?  This feature alone can be a huge differentiator.

For those who must have the best quality—businesses that are going to re-purpose the call into a podcast, for example—we offer the complete line of PGi audio and web conferencing services, including GlobalMeet.  For those who would like to sample our recording quality, we offer a free conference call recording snippet, with no obligation.  That is, we will record your call and send you a sample of it so you can verify the quality before making a commitment.  Did I mention there is no obligation?

So there you have it, the 5 biggest problems with free conference call services.  Why did I not mention the advantages?  Well, because there is only one, and you already know what that is….  It’s free!

Have you had an experience with a free conference call company—good, bad or indifferent?  Tell us about it in the comments below.

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Abbey Road–One of the Best Recording Studios Ever

I’ve been asked by prospective customers, “What makes your conference call recording service better than the less expensive Brand X?”  After eight years in business, this question still bothers me; like someone is attacking my baby.  But it’s a legitimate question.  After all, none of us want to pay more for the same product or service.

So instead of taking it personally, I think of the types of products and services that I am willing to pay more for.

I have a Home Theater.  When I first built it, did I buy all the cheapest electronics: the smallest screen, the weakest amplifiers, the least expensive projector?  When I take my wife out to dinner, do I take her to McDonald’s every time?  Of course not.  In both cases, I usually look for a good value; good quality that doesn’t break the bank.  But I also consider what I’m hungry for that day—do I feel like steak, BBQ, or seafood.

I think this is how customers think about our services:

• Am I getting a good value?
• What do I need to accomplish my goals today?
• Will a free conference call recording from Brand X be sufficient, or will it make my brand suffer?

Why is Our Recording Service the Best?
If you are like me and want a good value, let me help.

When I started recording telephone calls digitally in 1996, there was absolutely no competition.  Conference call companies were still recording to cassette, but it was clear to me that MP3, RM and WMA were the future of conference recording.

But these audio file formats are delivery formats.  They are not meant to be recording formats or files you should use for editing.  They are formats you use when you deliver the final product to the customer.  They are what’s called a “compressed” file which will lose much of it’s quality if you don’t handle them properly.  This concept has been lost on some providers, or they never knew it to begin with.  In addition, these formats require great care when encoding.  Soft volume levels here, frequencies being over extended there—the result is a substandard file.

Here is where AudioFile Solutions is different.

1. We record the conference call manually, not using any automation.  We get perfect recording levels every time.
2. We record natively to uncompressed 16 bit wave files.  Conversion to a compressed format is done later in the process.
3. We trim any unwanted noise, on-hold music or blank space from the beginning and ending of the call.
4. We fade the beginning and ending to sound professional.
5. We optimize the audio for volume and frequency content.  This makes the file comparably loud to other audio files you may play on your computer.
6. We encode the final compressed audio file to our exact specifications, to any high quality format you might need.  Just try asking Brand X for an Ogg file and see what answer you get.

We strive to make our recording service flexible and able to meet your specific needs.  We truly believe this is a different model than what is practiced in the industry as a whole.  Give us a shot.  Ask us for something tough; something that no other company would ever give you.  We dare you…

photo by Hyougushi

The post 6 Reasons Our Conference Call Recording Service is the Best appeared first on AudioFile Solutions.

Conference Call Recording Feature Will Not Work with This Type of Phone

ReadyConference Plus Features
People who already use PGi’s ReadyConference Plus audio conferencing service may already know about the cool features that are included for free with this service:

• Web Interface/Control Including Active Talker Icon
• Global and Individual Mute/Un-Mute
• Dial Out Access

Each of the above features separates PGi’s ReadyConference Plus from the free conference call services.

Conference Call Recording
But today I am going to talk about the conference call recording feature (hint: press *22 to activate before your call formally begins).  This is my favorite, by far, because it serves two very unique purposes.

1. It records your conference call as a digital replay—accessible to anyone with a telephone.
2. It acts as a high quality conference call recording for creation of high resolution audio files—such as wave, MP3, etc.

Most of our clients need a high resolution, high quality conference call recording, so we will skim over number one fairly quickly.  Suffice it to say, if anyone misses your live conference call, this is a great way to allow them to listen to it after-the-fact.

High Quality Conference Call Recording
To record your conference call and receive a pristine audio file useful for archiving, podcast production, audio editing, or online distribution, it’s as easy as pressing *22 before your call formally begins.  When your call is over, just hang up, and the recording will stop automatically.  Here is a link to PGi’s support page and a video from PGi that gets into the details of using this feature.  But believe me when I tell you, it is easy cheesy.

After the call is over, PGi will email you instructions on how to access this recording.  Forward that email to your AudioFile Solutions product manager and you will receive your audio file shortly afterward.  Costs for this service vary, so please ask your representative for pricing before you record your call.

We can also create a high quality conference call recording from your live event.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us for the details.

Stay tuned for more ReadyConference Plus features you might have overlooked.

photo by Workaholic Mimir

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Jack Feels the Sting of 100 Angry Stares After Ruining the Most Important Conference Call of the Year

Most of our new conferencing customers come to us looking for an edge over their competition.  They’re looking to get their message out, but many have never had a conference call before.

Early on, we explain to them the features of our most popular audio conferencing product—PGi’s ReadyConference Plus—and go over the ins and outs of having a successful conference.  Invariably, we arrive at a very common customer question, “What about recording?  We want the best quality we can get.”  Well, that’s music to our ears since we were founded on providing the best quality conference call recordings possible over a standard telephone line.  “That’s the entire reason we exist,” we say.  “Would you like a high resolution MP3, Wave, WMA?”

That gets the discussion started, but none of the technical jargon matters if we don’t discuss the quality issues before the audio gets to our equipment.

There are five critical areas that must be addressed to get the best quality conference call recording.

1. All participants should be dialed-in on landline phones.
2. Non-speaking parties should be muted.
3. A handset or headset should be the tool of choice.
4. Call waiting should be disabled.
5. The on-hold button should be anathema!

All participants should use standard landline telephones.
It seems funny, but one of our oldest technologies is still one of our best.  However, don’t fall into the trap of pressing the speakerphone button—that is the quickest way to ruin your high-end recording.  Also, do not use a cell phone, a VOIP service, or even a wireless phone connected to a landline.  All of these technologies degrade the  conference call audio in some way and should be avoided.

The reality is, however, some of your participants will ignore the above “DO NOT USE” list.  ReadyConference to the rescue… see next step.

Non-speaking parties should be muted.
A great feature of ReadyConference Plus by PGi, is the *6 muting function.  Any participant who is not speaking should press *6—the system will mute that line individually.

As the Host/Moderator, you can also control a participant’s mute status from the online web interface.  That is, if an unusual amount of noise is coming from a specific line, you will see it and be able to mute that line with a click of a button.

Another method is to have all speakers dial-in with the Host/Moderator passcode, and all non-speakers use the participant code.  Before starting the formal part of the call, have a moderator press *96 to mute all participant lines.  This acts as a global mute and can come in very handy with a little bit of think-ahead planning.

A handset or headset should be the tool of choice.
A bit earlier, we talked about not using a speakerphone on a conference call.  Instead, use a headset.  Most headsets these days have very good audio quality and will allow you to talk with your hands free.  Once in awhile, even a good quality headset can “act up”.  At those times, pick up your old reliable handset; you’ll be amazed how good it sounds.

Disable the Call Waiting feature on your telephone.
Most telephone companies allow you to disable this feature temporarily.  Before dialing your conference, press your telephone company’s magic combination of buttons to disable this function—usually restored when you hang up.  *70 seems to be the ticket with Qwest, but be sure to check with your local telephone company.

Never…ever use your on-hold button during a conference call recording.
Many businesses have on-hold music for the enjoyment of the person waiting.  Imagine the surprise of all the conference call attendees when you put them on hold and they are treated to the Musak version of Beat It by Michael Jackson.  Ok, so maybe you like MJ, but the practical implication is that the conference call will come to a complete stop until you return—and then you will know what embarrassment truly is.  One hundred of your most important business contacts will be wondering why you just wasted their precious time, and they’ll be looking to “light you up”—maybe literally—like Jack in the picture above.

While these five steps won’t guarantee a perfect conference recording, they will catapult you above your competitors who are not following these steps.  Your company brand now has one more edge in the dog-eat-dog world of business.

photo by garybirnie

The post 5 Tips to Get the Best Quality Conference Call Recording appeared first on AudioFile Solutions.

For instance, how many people know what the progressive scan feature does on their DVD player, or the difference between the IDE and SATA cable in a computer? On one hand, not knowing a DVD player’s video setting might leave you with a less than pleasurable viewing experience. But more seriously, not having the basic knowledge of the inside of a computer during a breakdown could leave you with a non-functioning pile of circuits and hardware—costing you hours of lost productivity.

At AudioFile Solutions, we certainly don’t want to add to the myriad of people blogging about the everyday functionality of the iPhone, or about any product that people are using in their consumer lives. But, we can help you with techniques and technology that can improve your professional life, and hopefully help you relieve that recurring itch on your forehead.

Our Plan: We couldn’t be more excited to announce our new blog on the techniques and technology of the things we know best—podcast production, telephone recording, and even our transcription services.

Our Customers: Our customers often ask for our thoughts on ways they can improve their podcasts, telephone interviews, etc. Questions like:

• Why is the quality of my conference call so poor? Could using Skype be the cause?
• What is the best mobile recorder for an in-person interview in a noisy IT environment?
• For SEO purposes, should a podcast contain loads of keywords like a website does?

We will attempt to address many of these questions in future posts. Heck, we may even join the chorus and talk about the iPhone—the professional uses, that is—as long as we are not duplicating ground that has already been covered elsewhere. In fact, did you know there is a hardware plug-in that turns your iPhone into a mobile recorder! But we’ll talk about that later.

In the meantime, do you have a question of your own? What bit of audio or video technology leaves you scratching your head in your professional life? Is converting that 100 page PowerPoint presentation to video giving you fits?

Our Future Blog: Please leave your questions in the comments section of this post; even if you find this several years after the initial posting. We look forward to a conversation with you on these often overlooked topics.

The post What Does an iPhone, DVD Player and a Computer Have In Common? appeared first on AudioFile Solutions.