Dialing a modem and playing a soundclip from c# web form code

[Brent]

Hi, I want to recreate my own version of http://snakesonaplane.varitalk.com/
.. So basically I want to start with a basic, make the modem dial a number
and play a soundclip to the person that answers. Can someone point me in the
right direction?
Thanks,
Brent

 

[Guest]

Brent,
It's likely to be a lot more complicated than you state, since the sound
clip that is played is a custom sound clip that says your name and includes
contextual information related to some of the questions you answered.

But that's only part of the problem. These promos are done with a media
server that puts MP3 streams onto the outbound call, usually through RTP
transport.

You would have to at least have a 2 line modem and a way to conference or
"bridge" the two calls.

Hope you make a lot of money with it!
Peter

 

[Brent]

Well, I'm not so worried about that part, cause I could build a few clips
and then programatically choose which ones to play. So I'm thinking my
regular internet connection will take the web request to set up the call,
then just the modem to make the call and play the clip. Like I said, I just
want to get the first step working. Dial a modem and play 1 sound clip over
it. That's the part I need help with.

 

[Dick Grier]

Hi,

Dialing the modem is easy. Examples abound.

The hard part is the remainder. Only a small percentage of modems (so
called "voice" modems) support playing a wav file -- or other audio format.
So, first you have to select a modem that actually will work. Next is
timing. Standard modems, even voice modems, do not provide feedback that
you can use to determine when something interesting has happened (such as a
person answering the phone, or responding to something that he/she has heard
that you "played").

IMO, you have your work cut out for you. Any advice that you receive should
point you to more sophisitcated hardware, such as that designed for IVR
(Interactive Voice Response) systems. A PC and a modem simply isn't up to
the task. Again, IMO.

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.

 

[Greg Young]

Alot of older modems supported this (remember the old answerring machine
software systems?)

Generally the API's were modem specific though if I remember correctly.

Cheers,

Greg Young
MVP - C#
http://codebetter.com/blogs/gregyoung

 

[nick_nw]

Hi, I want to recreate my own version of http://snakesonaplane.varitalk.com/
. So basically I want to start with a basic, make the modem dial a number
and play a soundclip to the person that answers. Can someone point me in the
right direction?
Thanks,
Brent

To dial a modem you could simply write commands to the modems com port.
The dial command is typically ATD123456789.

The problem you might have, however, is that .Net 1.1 doesn't have any
built in support for accessing the serial port. If you are going to
access the serial port there are plenty of examples on the net,
inluding c# code samples. Failing that win32 has full support for
serial communications.

Let me know if want more details on interfacing with the serial port
from .Net 1.1.

Nick
http://seecharp.blogspot.com/