Recording an audio conference

Recording an audio conference

Document number: 18292

Before recording streaming media, ensure that your computer meets the hardware requirements listed in Eureka! document 18297 — Hardware requirements for streaming content creation. For additional information about creating streaming media, see Eureka! document 18291 — Creating streaming content.

You can create a streaming file of audio only to broadcast a message, post a recorded phone conference, or publish meeting discussions/minutes. The suggested tools are Microsoft® Encoder (which is free) with Microsoft PowerPoint, and an external microphone or headset.

Follow the steps below to capture the audio using MS PowerPoint and convert it to .wma using MS Encoder. There’s probably never a reason to create high-bandwidth streaming audio, so the steps below discuss creating low bandwidth version.

MS PowerPoint and MS Encoder

The instructions below use Encoder’s wizard, which is the easiest way. If you already have a .wav file from a tool other than PowerPoint, you can use that and skip to Step 2.

Record your audio using in PowerPoint. Use the Slide Show/Record Narration feature to create your audio. (Note: the sound quality of this initial recording will have the greatest effect on the quality of your final product.)

In PowerPoint, select Slide Show/Record Narration…
Click the Change Quality… button to select the sound quality

Use PCM default.
Select 16 kHz, 16 Bit, Mono. If you find that this recording takes up too much space on your hard drive, try capturing at 8kHz, 16 Bit, Mono, which will have only slightly poorer quality but take about half the space.
Click OK.

Check the Link Narrations In: box and change the directory if desired. This is the function that will create a separate .wav file that you will encode.
Click OK, and begin recording your audio. Pressing the ESC key will stop the recording and ask you if you want to save it. (For more information on this, use the PowerPoint Help feature.)

To convert your recording to low-bandwidth, use Encoder’s Wizard—you can get Windows Media Encoder 9 Series from Microsoft’s site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp). For more information about low-bandwidth, see the low/high bandwidth section of Eureka! document 18286 — Streaming Media FAQs.

Start Encoder and choose Convert a File using the New Session Wizard.
At Source File, browse for your recorded .wav file.
Check the Output File location and the name and change it if you like.
Choose Windows Media Server for the content distribution type.
For Encoding Options, choose Voice Quality Audio (CBR) for the Audio setting and set the Bit Rate to 7Kbps and uncheck the 19 Kbps. (You can select 11 or 19 Kbps and it might give you better sound. Compression at higher rates than these will not give you appreciably better sound and could affect the number of simultaneous users in smaller offices. Never exceed the low-bandwidth rate of 40Kbps for audio recordings.)
Enter the Title and Author in the display dialogue (the rest is optional); click Next.
Check Settings Review and then press Finish button.

Review the .wma file; make sure Windows Media Player indicates it has the correct bit rate (shown at the bottom of the viewer) before giving the file to your Planet publisher.
When you’re satisfied with your recordings, you must have them published to the streaming server network and have links created in Planet. Refer to Eureka! document 18298 — Publishing streaming content for details on where to put your finished file(s) and who to contact to get them published.