3. Viewing and Playing Recordings¶

After you have found and organized recordings you may view and play the recordings.

3.1. Viewing Recordings¶

Recordings displayed in the Browse, Search, or Incident tabs are shown in two different ways simultaneously. The first is a simple tabular list displayed in the upper right-hand pane, called the record view. This view can be customized in that it supports several different column and sorting options. The second is a graphical chart of recordings displayed in the lower right-hand pane referred to as the timeline. The timeline can also be customized, but only supports a single method of displaying the recording data by time.

Together, the record view and timeline view provide a comprehensive look at the same set of data. Selections between the two views are synchronized; any recordings selected in one are automatically selected in the other. Similar operations may be performed from each view, including playback and export.

3.2. The Record View¶

The record view in the upper right-hand pane presents recording data in tabular format. It is also called the call grid. You may sort the information by clicking on the appropriate column heading. A small arrow will indicate the sort direction. To reverse the sort, click the column heading again.

Fig. 3.1 Record View¶

Columns can also be reorganized. Click and drag any column heading to a new position. The type and number of columns can also be customized. Right click any column heading and a menu of available column names will appear. You may add or delete a column from this menu. To reset the columns to their user-defined default values, select the Reset to Default option.

Fig. 3.2 Record View Showing Records with Removed Media and an Error¶

There is a retention setting option that allows administrators to retain metadata (duration, date, custom fields, channel number, etc) about record but delete the media (audio or screen recording) whenever the recorder needs to delete recordings to make space. In this case, calls are shown with an [R] in the left-most column of the call grid. A red “!” means there is an error with the call; hover the mouse over the ! to see the error message.

Selecting a recording in the Record view and then right-clicking on that recording causes the Record View menu to appear.

Fig. 3.3 Record View Context Menu¶

The Record View menu selections include:

Properties – See Call Properties Screen
Block Media Access… - See Media Access Blocking (Optional, off by default)
Protect – Checking this box prevents the selected recording from being deleted from the recorder due to recorder call retention policy. When protecting a large number of calls, a progress bar will pop up to provide feedback while the system is protecting calls.
New Incident from Selected Records – See Creating an Incident.
Add Selected to incident – See Adding and Removing Recordings from an Incident.
Evaluate Records – Evaluate selected call recordings. Requires Quality Factor add-on license. See Eventide Quality Factor Software Manual for details.
Start Sequential Playback – See Sequential Playback Mode.
Export… – See Exporting Recording Data from an Incident.
Export Single Recording – See Exporting Recording Data from an Incident.
Add Text Annotation – Add annotations to a call, at a specific point in time. See Annotating Calls.
Add Audio Annotation – Add audio commentary to a call, at a specific point in time. See Annotating Calls.
Show Errors… – This option will only appear if there is an error with the record, indicated by a red exclamation point next to the call. Select it to get see information about the error.
Draw Waveform – Generate a waveform for the recording if it’s an audio call. The waveform is displayed in the Timeline View.
Generate Word Factor – Generate a searchable “best guess” at what the audio contains as text. Requires a Word Factor add-on license and patch.

3.4. The Timeline View¶

The Timeline view in the lower right-hand pane shows the same set of recordings that are displayed in the Record view, but presents the recording data in a linear chart. Recordings are organized into groups by channel name and are displayed in chronological order from left to right. The individual recordings are drawn in the timeline in the horizontal direction in relation to their duration. Scroll the timeline to the right (or to the left) to view recordings that are not visible. If more than one channel is represented in the data, scroll the timeline up or down to display channels that may not be initially visible.

Fig. 3.4 Timeline View - Audio Recordings¶

You can increase or decrease the time length displayed on the timeline, and increase or decrease the height of the individual rows. To zoom, click on the appropriate small magnifying glass in the lower left corner of the pane. (These are from left to right: vertical zoom in, vertical zoom out, horizontal zoom in, horizontal zoom out.) In the Figure above, it has the words Thirty Seconds in the left corner. Clicking this will open a menu offering a variety of time scales from one second to one year. The selected time scale defines the amount of time to be displayed between each “tick” on the timeline. In the Figure above, there are three ticks, each representing the start of each half minute.

Note: If you zoom out on a large amount of call data with several system or text annotations per call, annotations will be displayed as red dots to improve legibility. You will need to zoom in to see details for a specific call.

Fig. 3.5 Example of Annotations as Red Dots at High Zoom¶

Note: If an Analog board’s channel is configured in the Configuration Manager to record with the detect type On Voxbreak, you can have recordings which are assigned the calltype Inactivity in MediaWorks DX™. They also have a different appearance from regular Audio recordings in the timeline. As shown in the Figure below, the timeline contains the standard grey blocks which correspond to Audio recordings as well as transparent blocks which correspond to Inactivity recordings. These Inactivity recordings occur when the audio input levels on the channel fall below the channel’s configured VOX threshold. The difference in appearance makes it easy to distinguish between Inactivity and Audio recordings in the timeline, while the difference in calltype designation makes it easy to search for periods of activity or inactivity. Inactivity recordings can be played from the timeline or the record view table by double-clicking it just as any other call can. For more details regarding “ON VOXBREAK”, refer to Section 4.6.1 in the Eventide NexLog manual.

Fig. 3.6 Example of Inactive and Audio Calls from On Voxbreak Recordings¶

In the Channel Name box on the left there are a number of playback settings that you can set on a channel-by-channel basis by using the settings menu.

Fig. 3.7 Playback Settings Menu¶

They include:

Volume Slider - Moving the volume slider left or right decreases or increases the volume for this channel. Clicking on the mute button (green speaker icon) to the left of the down arrow mutes the sound on the selected channel. The button will then be grayed out. Clicking on the grayed-out mute button will restore the sound to that channel.
Balance Slider - Pan this channel to the right, center or left of the stereo field.
AGC – Checking this box will enable automatic gain control on this channel.
EQ Boost - Apply an EQ boost or cut based on the EQ settings in the tool menu.
Options… - Clicking on this menu item displays an Options dialog box. (See Playback Settings Options below.)

3.4.2. Playback Settings Options¶

The Options dialog box for playback settings allows you to enable Mute, AGC, Obfuscate or EQ Boost for this channel. Mute, AGC and EQ Boost just have an Enable checkbox to turn the feature on and off. The obfuscate option allows you to garble the sound of voices on the channel so that the identity of the speaker is obscured. The Amount slider allows you to adjust the amount the effect is applied to the audio.

Fig. 3.8 Obfuscate Option¶

3.4.3. Resource Gain Defaults¶

In the Tools menu, you will find Resource Gain Defaults, which opens to the above panel that allows you to configure a default setting for the EQ, AGC and Gain for every resource name currently on the system, so that every tab you open from then on will load these settings.

Fig. 3.9 Resource Gain Defaults¶

Reset will return to factory defaults: EQ and AGC Off, Volume at 0db gain. Use Current will change the settings to those set in the currently open tab; this is useful if you’ve gotten it “just right” and want to save the settings for the future. Apply to Tab will apply all of the settings in this pop up to the open tab. Save will save the settings and they will be applied when new tabs are opened.

3.4.4. EQ Settings¶

In the Tools menu, the EQ Settings menu option opens a pop up that allows you to set the amount of signal boost or cut in a three band EQ. This allows you to tune the playback of call audio to improve sound quality and compensate for lines that are too bright or muddy. One EQ setting is supported at a time; you can either have it turned on for all channels here with Always On setting, or you can turn it on for specific channels only as detailed above.

Fig. 3.10 EQ Settings¶

Selecting a recording in the Timeline view and then right-clicking on that recording causes the Timeline View menu to appear.

The menu selections are the same as those in the Record View menu. Refer to the Record View Menu Options for information about those menu items.

Note: When working in an Incident Tab, there is also a Remove option that can be selected; selecting Remove From Incident allows you to remove the selected recording(s) from the incident.

3.4.6. Timeline Zoom Options¶

The Timeline has zoom options that let you adjust how much call data you are looking at in a given amount of horizontal space. This ranges in granularity from one second to one year.

Fig. 3.11 Timeline Zoom Options¶

The Timeline has zoom options that let you adjust how much call data you are looking at in a given amount of horizontal or vertical space. The horizontal ranges in granularity from one second to one year. This grain affects what the distance between two markers on the timeline means. In the example below, the zoom is set to one minute and the dark checkmarks in the timeline are one minute apart:

Fig. 3.12 Timeline At One Minute Zoom¶

The magnifying glasses with + and – signs can be used to increase or decrease the horizontal (time) zoom level; the arrows change the vertical zoom. Shift+Click into the timeline will zoom in, Shift+Right-Click will zoom out.

3.5. Playing Audio Recordings¶

Once you have located recordings from the Browse, Search, or Incident tabs, you have several options for playing the recordings. The following information describes the options for playing recordings in the Sequential mode. In this mode, recordings are played one recording at a time, in the order in which they appear in the record list. To change the play order, sort the list of recordings differently. Playback will adapt to the new sequence. For information about playing recordings in the Mixed mode, see Playback Modes.

To begin playing the audio from a recording, press the Play button in the Playback console at the bottom of the screen (see The Playback Console). The first recording in the list will begin playing. To indicate which recording is currently playing a green arrow appears to the left of the recording in the Recording pane, and the call’s row is highlighted in green.

Alternatively, select a recording and press Enter on the keyboard to begin playback, or press the Spacebar on the keyboard to begin, pause, and resume playback. Once the first recording in the list has been selected, the Spacebar can only be used to pause and resume play. To select another recording, highlight the recording in the Record view or in the Timeline view and press the Enter key or double-click on the new recording. The recording will start playing immediately. Use the Spacebar or Pause button to stop playback and the Spacebar or Play button to resume playback.

You may also use the sub-menu items in the Playback menu to control playback or right-click the desired recording and select Start Sequential Playback from the drop-down menu.

3.6. Playing Screen Recordings¶

Fig. 3.13 Screen Playback¶

Screen recordings can be played back in the same way as Audio calls, but there are additional options that relate specifically to screens. These options are configured via the Multimedia Display Options window you can access via the View menu:

Fig. 3.14 Multimedia Display Options¶

This allows you configure how multimedia recordings will be played back, and also allows for configuring the real-time display of Metadata, discussed below. Display in Application is shown above; the screen recording plays back in a floating window inside the MediaWorks DX™ browser window. Display in Canvas looks like this:

Fig. 3.15 Canvas at Top¶

A panel appears above or to the right of the search results (depending on the Multimedia Orientation setting). This panel is called the Multimedia Canvas. It can also appear to the right of the call list:

Fig. 3.16 Canvas at Right¶

Fig. 3.17 Media Window Controls (Detail)¶

The top right corner of the media window contains these three buttons: Pop out to Application, Pop Out to External Window, and Close. If popped out to the application level, the first button will show a minus sign for “Collapse into Multimedia Canvas.”

Fig. 3.18 Media Window Popped Out¶

When popped out to an external window, the multimedia record is still controlled by the Playback Console in the main MediaWorks DX™ window. It also just has an X for Close in the upper right corner, which will pop the call back into the main window.

Fig. 3.19 Real-Time Metadata Panel¶

The Metadata Panel shows a list in chronological order of the metadata associated with calls played back from this search, browse or incident. The line in bold is the current or most recently played call. This lets you highlight the specific metadata you want to keep track of as you play calls.

3.7. The Playback Console¶

The Playback Console, located at the bottom of the browser window, allows you to control all aspects of playing recordings. From the Playback Console, you can adjust the volume and speed of the recording(s) being played:

Volume – Use this slider to increase or decrease the master audio volume. Moving the slider to the right increases the volume; moving it to the left decreases the volume. Pressing the 100% button to the right of the slider will reset the slider to the default center position.
Speed – Use this slider to increase or decrease the playing speed of the recording(s). Moving the slider to the right increases the speed; moving it to the left decreases the speed. Pressing the 100% button to the right of the slider will reset the slider to the default position.

Fig. 3.20 Playback Console¶

The buttons in the center of the console include (from left to right):

Previous Recording – If playback is less than 3 seconds into the recording, moves to previous recording in the selected sequence. If playback is more than 3 seconds into the recording, resets to the start of the current recording.
Play/Pause – Plays any highlighted recording, pauses if currently playing, or resumes playback after pausing.
Next Recording – Moves to the next recording in the selected sequence.
Loop – Loops playback for the selected recording or recordings. For sequential playback, this is the beginning and end of a recording or the loop boundary settings within a single recording. For mixed playback this is the loop boundary settings anywhere within the timeline.

To the top of the console are the following additional tools:

Slider – The slider on top of the console allows you to change the playback position. This is known as scrubbing. You can scrub at any time during playback. To quickly move to a different spot within a recording, click and drag the scrub slider. While scrubbing, keep track of the position by watching the playback time indicator.
Skip - The double-arrow buttons on each side of the slider allow you to Skip Forward (>>) or Skip Back (<<).

While a recording is being played, its attributes scroll from right to left in the area above the playback controls. This information includes the recording’s channel name, recording time and length of the recording. The information in the area above the slider includes the current playback time. If you click inside this area, it will switch to show the total length of the recording (on the right) as well as current playback position (on the left).

The Playback Console can be displayed in two modes: Static Playback Console (at the bottom of the page) and Floating Playback Console . The mode can be switched at any time from static to float by clicking arrow button in the upper right corner of the Static Playback Console. Once enabled, the Floating Playback Console will be displayed in the upper right corner of the tab by default, but it can be moved around the window. To change the mode back to static, click x close button in the upper right corner of the float console.

Fig. 3.21 Floating Playback Console¶

The Playback Console state is global for all tabs, except Channels tab and Evaluations tab and saved between the loads. The Static Playback Console is located at the bottom of the browser window. Once started in one tab, the playback can be controlled with the same console in other tabs. Playback Console is displayed as blue in active tab, where the calls are playing from and grey – in other tabs.

Anytime the Playback Console mode can be switched from static to float by clicking arrow button in the upper right corner of the Static Playback Console. Once enabled, Float Playback Console will be displayed in the upper right corner of the tab by default, but it can be moved around the window. To disable Float Playback Console, click x close button in the upper right corner of the float console.

3.8. Playback Modes¶

MediaWorks DX™ supports two modes of playback: sequential and mixed. Recording data can be streamed from an Eventide recorder or from a remote incident containing embedded audio data. Optionally, playback can be modified to include “Time Marker” information at the start of each recording.

3.8.1. Sequential Playback Mode¶

Sequential playback occurs on one recording at a time. The order in which recordings play is determined by the record view. To change the order in which sequential playback operates, change the sort order of the record view.

To begin sequential playback, select Start Sequential Playback from the right-click context menu in the Record view or Timeline view. Alternatively, you can double-click a recording or highlight a recording and press the Enter key.

3.8.2. Mixed Playback Mode¶

Mixed playback will play back recordings in the timing that they actually occurred. Mixed Mode playback is also referred to as ‘real time playback’. The order in which recordings plays is determined by the start time of the recording. Mixed playback always proceeds in time order, from earliest to latest. If you are examining recordings from multiple channels, the case may be that multiple recordings occur at the same or overlapping times.

For example, if audio was recorded on a channel named “Dispatch 1” at the same time audio was recorded on a channel named “Emergency 5”, the audio for both recordings will be played back at the same time. When audio is playing in Mixed mode, you can easily follow the progress in the timeline, which highlights all playing recordings across all channels.

3.8.3. Mixed Playback of a Single Resource/Channel¶

Single timeline resource/channel can be played back in mixed mode. This is useful for playing back a single talkgroup or resource while looking at search results or instant recall on more than one timeline resource at a time. In order to active Single Resource mixed playback hold down the Ctrl key while viewing the properties menu and select “Select Resource Mixed Playback.”

3.8.4. Mixed Playback of Currently Selected Call Records Only¶

You can playback only a selected subset of calls in the timeline, in mixed mode. Use Ctrl+click to

select multiple calls from the timeline or the call list, and then right click one of the selected calls and choose “Start Mixed Playback.” This will then play in real time all of the selected calls and no other calls.

3.8.5. Quick Playback from Timeline Header: Click to Play¶

You can click in the timeline header (where the time is displayed along the top) to start mixed playback at any point. We call this “click to play.” If you have started calls in sequential mode, a click to play will follow suit and play in sequential mode. You can switch it back to Mixed by right-clicking in the Timeline header and selecting “Start Mixed Playback.”