| Just about everyone knows that recording phone
calls is important to ensuring quality customer service, liability
protection, and evaluation and training purposes. However, many businesses
balk at the thought of spending thousands of dollars on an expensive
recording system. Arunta comes to the rescue with their inexpensive Total
Recall Voice Logger product, which comes with 1,600-hour online recording
capacity, archiving to CD-R disks, and port densities of 4, 8, 12, or 16.
INSTALLATION
Installing the Total Recall was a snap. Since the unit is
"pre-loaded" with all the necessary software, all we needed to
do was make the necessary connections, which included just four RJ11 phone
wires, a power cord, and a serial cable that is used in conjunction with
their Windows software for voice recording playback and e-mailing.
Configuring the unit was also easy using a user-friendly LCD display,
arrow keys, and a numeric keypad.
DOCUMENTATION
The documentation was pretty good and contained a useful table of
contents. Because the product was so simple to use, detailed documentation
wasn't necessary, but we were happy to see that the time was taken to
include it. Screenshots and diagrams that demonstrate how to install and
use the system are available. Our sole complaint was that one topic seemed
to overflow into a completely different topic within the same page. Lots
of different topics were crammed into a single page and the use of font
styles (bold, italic, etc.) didn't follow the standard conventions.
Overall though, we were pleased.
FEATURES
Total Recall allows you to retrieve records via time, date, call duration,
channel number, caller's number, or party called (you don't need the full
number). Also, you can combine criteria to drill down. It comes in 4, 8,
12, and 16-channel configurations with over 1,200 hours of on-line storage
capacity.
Other features include:
- LCD screen with simple navigation keys.
- CLI capture of incoming call numbers.
- Live Monitor calls from any channel in real-time.
- Remote Recall software replay calls at your PC.
- Archive all or selected calls to CD-R.
- Recording trigger selectable by VOX or Off-Hook.
- Password security and recording "beep" option.
- Serial interface to PC for database download.
OPERATIONAL TESTING
The unit itself has a nice, clear, easy to read LCD display that is
just as easy to navigate. With only four menus (Configuration, Logging,
Playback, and Archiving) to navigate, we were able to traverse the entire
system and learn every feature in less than 15 minutes. The LCD display
tells you vital information such as "% hard disk full" as well
as the date and time.
Within the Configuration menu we were able to select either "VOX
low," "VOX medium," or "VOX high" as the trigger
to start recording. Essentially these three modes are "tweaks"
that the administrator will set to determine at which volume level the
unit listens for "voice" on the lines to determine when to start
recording. This can be set on a channel-by-channel basis, which is
important since often one phone line has more audio gain and less
interference than another channel. We could also set the system to
auto-start recording when the line goes "off hook."
Next, we made some test calls into the system so that we could play
them back later. Within the Logging menu, we saw the calls that we had
previously recorded. Each call record contained information such as the
channel number, the length of the call, the date, and the time. By
selecting the call and clicking on the Play button on the unit, we were
able to play back the call. We could also fast forward, rewind, and stop
the playback in the middle. Of course this "Logging" menu can
quickly become filled up with dozens or even hundreds of calls, so Total
Recall provides a search utility within the more advanced Playback menu
screen.
The Playback menu is the heart of the system. From this screen we were
able to set search criteria by date range, time range, channel number, and
direction (inbound or outbound), as well as the source. We were able to
quickly define our criteria to drill down to the call records we desired.
The last menu, Archiving, was pretty straightforward. We could schedule
a time to perform an archive of call recordings or we could manually
archive them. Essentially when you archive the call recordings, they are
burned onto a CD-ROM with a built-in CD-R drive and then deleted off the
Voice Logger unit to free up space. In addition, an option under the
Logging menu allowed us to tag certain call records to be archived.
Archiving was pretty simple and we had no complaints about this feature.
One last element we tested was Remote Recall, which is Windows-based
software that allows you to perform searches on call recordings, as well
as play back the voice recordings from your multimedia PC. The interface
was decent, but we didn't like the fact that it had to convert from Total
Recall's .TRC format to .WAV for playback.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
Sometimes we hit the "Menu" button too many times and had to
scroll all the way back around again. Granted, there are only four menus
to scroll through, so perhaps we're nit-picking a little, but still we'd
still like to see a "back" button or some method of going the
opposite direction within the menu structure.
The voice recordings use a proprietary compression algorithm with a .TRC
extension. We'd like to suggest that Total Recall support the popular .MP3
compression format so there is no need to convert from its .trc file
format to .wav. Also, strangely enough, this feature of saving recorded
calls from the Windows interface stopped working; the Save Calls option
was grayed-out.
Finally, we determined that we couldn't access the archiving features
(archive calls) from the Windows interface. We would like to see this
available in a future release. We should note, however, that if you
archive your calls by saving them to a CD-ROM, you can access them from
the Windows interface.
CONCLUSION
Total Recall's Voice Logger is an easy-to-use, virtually turnkey solution
whose elegance is best represented by its simplicity. Because it is a
self-contained unit with a built-in display, you don't have to worry about
space in the telecom closet for a computer monitor, which is typical of
many call recording systems. This may not be the most feature-rich voice
recording system TMC Labs has seen, but for many potential customers the
features that the Total Recall Voice Logger does have is all they really
need.
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