Because the quality of both the presenters' audio and the video resolution varies considerably from one day to the next I felt the need to compile a list of suggestions that if followed will improve the results of recordings made over the telephone.

Here they are:

1. Use a 'wired' phone... wireless phones (both the home variety and cell phones) are generally harder to understand and have considerably more distortion than a wired phone. Therefore, whenever possible, use a wired phone... one with a wire connecting the talking part to the part that sits on the table.
2. Do not use speaker-phones. When using speaker-phones, the microphone on the speaker-phone picks up all of the other sounds in the room including paper rustles, other people coughing, car horns, pencils dropping, and chairs moving. It also picks up the reverberation of the room which sometimes makes it harder to understand what the presenter is saying. Speaker-phones also tend to overload the phone-line that they are connected to which has the undesirable effect of distorting the person's voice which is heard by everyone. It is understandable that sometimes speaker-phones are unavoidable because more than one presenter must be on hand to speak at the same time as someone else. But whenever possible, use a wired phone handset held next to the presenters' ear and mouth.
3. When sharing your desktop be sure to maximize the size of your presentation. In other words, make the presentation be full screen. The smaller the size of the screen, the lower the quality of the final video product. It is a law of physics that I cannot change. Higher screen resolutions are generally better, so it is advisable to set your screen resolution to it's highest native resolution.

These are merely suggestions on how to make better recordings for telephone recordings. They are not meant as absolutes, but instead to be used as guidelines. Following them will make the recordings always be top quality.

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