Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Show Time Answering Equipment

This is topic Show Time Answering Equipment in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Dennis Udovich (Member # 1066) on 04-03-2004, 01:55 PM:

Having a 14-plex, and showing on average 16-18 different movies per week (due to double-ups), it takes 4 to 5 minutes on a phone answering machine to give out show times, pricing, policy, etc. What's available in the marketplace for a good system? Something that would accept at least 4 incoming phone lines, able to change up to 20 film titles, times, pricing, policy separately and easy to program. For some reason, there doesn't seem to be much available. [Frown]

Can anyone help? [Smile]

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 04-03-2004, 03:23 PM:

Smart Devices have been making digital annoucement telephone answer machines for years..... go to to their web site on the Film-Tech link page. If your needs can not be satified by them there is MacKenzie Engineering in California...they do everything from airport / amusement park / emergency annoucing systems.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-04-2004, 12:51 AM:

Here's one way to do this.

Get voice mail package that allows you to set up announcement boxes that respond to certain touch-tones.

Open with a generic greeting, boxoffice open time, then instructions on navigating the following menu of titles.

Set up 14 "boxes", that play in sequence. Announce one of your movie titles in each box, then give the caller a second to press "1" for information & times about that particular show, or pound to move forward, star to move backward.

That scenario gives the caller a little control, yet sets up a logical sequence for those who aren't comfortable with voicemail.

Your callers will get to the show that interests them faster, and you can add extra information that would otherwise make a single recording interminably long.

You can also add certain touch-tone combinations to send your callers to theatre information, like location, prices & policies. Changing the recordings would involve only those shows that would be different for the next week.

A more exotic system could be programmed to read the database off your POS system, playing showtimes derived from your system schedule. If you changed a showtime, the system would automatically pick that up.

That sure would take it past the ole Code-A-Phone or Phone-Mate, eh? [Big Grin]

Posted by Jeff Knoll (Member # 1145) on 04-05-2004, 12:12 AM:

You can accomplish a branch script style information service (as described in the previous reply) with products from Talking Technology. They sell cards and software that are driven by standard PC style computer. For one line, you can use the BigMouth package and for 2 and more, you can use Powervoice (that is what we use).

www.tti.net

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-05-2004, 01:23 AM:

Yah... I used a very early version of the Powerline boards when I first got into this in '88 or so. I may have gotten into it too early though... they weren't very good back then & I switched to Dialogic boards, which I still use.

It's pretty much the same idea, though. [thumbsup]