Professionally Record Prompts

Purpose

How to install professionally-recorded prompts on the DV2000/DV4.

General Overview

The DV2000/DV4 uses three types of voice files: greetings, messages and prompts.

All three types of voice recordings conform to the following format, and will generally have a .wav file extension:

8-bit 8KHz mu-Law PCM WAVE

Sometimes you will see u-Law, μ-Law or CCITT μ-Law instead of mu-Law; all three mean the same thing.

Recording

You may record any greeting or prompt on the system using any tool or service that can produce recordings that conform to the specified format: 8-bit 8KHz mu-Law PCM WAVE.

If you have further questions regarding how to record greetings or prompts or where you can have them professionally recorded using the same voice talent as DuVoice uses, contact your authorized DuVoice reseller for assistance.

Installation

Assuming that the voice files you have recorded are in the correct format, installation involves little more than making sure the files have the correct file extension and then copying them to the correct folder.  The process does differ slightly, however, depending on whether you are installing mailbox greetings or system prompts.

Greetings

All mailbox greeting files should have either a .grt or .wav file extension; other than the extension, the name of the file does not matter, as long as it is different from any other greeting file in the same mailbox.

To install a professionally-recorded mailbox greeting, you can either manually copy the files into the folder for the selected mailbox, or you can use Mailbox Administration to import the recording for you; we recommend using the latter method.  To do so, double-click on the mailbox in Mailbox Administration to open the Mailbox Editor.  Select the Owner Settings property page, as shown below:

In the Greetings section, click the Files button to open the Mailbox Greeting Detail dialog, then click the Browse button to open the Prompt Selection dialog, shown below:

This dialog displays a list of all prompt files currently in the mailbox.  To import your newly recorded files, click the Import button to display the Open dialog (shown below):

Navigate to the folder containing your new prompts.  If it does not list the prompt files, check the Files of type drop-down list to make sure it is looking for the correct file extension.  By default, it lists only files ending in .wav (as shown above).  If your recordings end in .grt, click the down arrow on the drop-down list and select the Greeting Files (.GRT) option.

Select the file(s) to import and click Open to import all selected files into the selected mailbox.  You will return to the Prompt Selection dialog, which will now display the files you imported, in addition to any greeting files already in the mailbox.

Note:  The import feature does not remove the selected files from the original location.  Rather, it makes a copy of each file and places it in the mailbox folder, giving it a new, unique filename.

Note:  As long as the file(s) are in a standard WAV format (such as Microsoft CCITT G.711 or MS PCM), the import process will attempt to convert it to the correct format.  However, this is not always guaranteed to work as it depends on your system having the necessary audio codec loaded.  While the Windows operating system typically has several common codecs loaded, it may not have the one you need. You can check which audio codecs are loaded on your system by opening a class of service (COS) template (in Mailbox Administration), selecting the VeMail tab and then checking the drop-down list labeled WAV file format.

After importing the file(s), you may then proceed with assigning them to whichever of the eight available greetings you desire (or to the name recording, if appropriate).

System Prompts

System prompt files must be installed manually into the correct location, must have the correct file name and must use the .WAV file extension.

Every system prompt has a unique, four-digit prompt ID, in the range 1000-9999, which is used as the file name.  To professionally re-record one of these prompts, you must know the correct prompt ID.  For example, the default mailbox greeting for system mailboxes (such as mailbox 991) is system prompt 1973, which has the default script: Thank you for calling.  Please enter the extension number now.

Once you have your prompt(s) recorded in the correct format and have verified that the filename(s) are also correct, you may copy the file(s) to the correct folder on the DV2000/DV4 system.  To determine the correct folder, you must know the language of the recordings.  The  DV2000/DV4 supports several languages, each of which can be purchased and installed on the system.  Each language has a unique, 3-digit ID number that is also used as the folder name for that language's prompt set.  The table below shows the assigned IDs for all currently-supported languages:

Note: Not all languages currently provide a full prompt set.  Only English (U.S.), English (U.K.), Spanish, French (CA), Portuguese (BR), German and Turkish are complete prompt sets.  All others contain only the prompts required for the subscriber menu of a guest mailbox.

Note: Not all languages may be installed on your system. By default, a system is licensed for a maximum of 5 languages:  U.S. English plus any four other languages.  However, only U.S. English is installed by default.  All other languages must be purchased from the manufacturer and then installed on the system.  Downloads for the various language prompt sets may be found at the manufacturer's website:  www.duvoice.com.  Contact your authorized DuVoice reseller for more information.

All prompt files for a given language are located in the folder for that language.  For example, all prompt files for English (U.S.) will be located in the 101 folder, which can be specified by the following path:

C:\DuVoice\LANGUAGE\101

Each language folder also has one sub-folder named CUSTOM.  Any prompt files that are re-recorded using the administrator menus in the telephone user interface are placed in the custom folder:

C:\DuVoice\LANGUAGE\101\CUSTOM

By default, the system will always look for the custom recording first and play that file; only if there is no custom file will it look in the main folder for a default recording to play.

Consequently, you may copy your professionally-recorded files into the appropriate language's CUSTOM folder if you wish to retain the original recordings provided by the manufacturer just in case.  If not, you can copy the recordings directly into the main folder (in the example above, that would be the 101 folder).

Select List of Prompts

The following table provides an abbreviated list of commonly re-recorded system prompts.  For a complete list, contact your authorized DuVoice reseller.

Standard Prompts

Hospitality Prompts

*Currently, these prompts can be used to assign custom wakeup prompts on a per-Class of Service basis and/or for the celebrity wakeup feature.