Is It Possible to Play an Audio File While Doing Other Stuff?

[vcomp]

Is it possible to play a file while the system is doing some background task? Then, when the task is complete--let's say after two seconds--stop playing the file and move on the the next step in the dialplan?

TIA

 

[jroper]

Hi

The two commands to compare are playback and background.

From: -
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+cmd+Playback

Playback will play the whole sound file, and when complete, return control. Compare with the Background command, which plays a sound file but returns control immediately, allowing Asterisk to perform other commands on this channel while the sound file is playing.

Joe

 

[vcomp]

Thank you for your response.

Hi

The two commands to compare are playback and background.

From: -
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+cmd+Playback

Playback will play the whole sound file, and when complete, return control. Compare with the Background command, which plays a sound file but returns control immediately, allowing Asterisk to perform other commands on this channel while the sound file is playing.

Joe

Agreed, but voip-info says "This application will play the given list of files while waiting for an extension to be dialed by the calling channel. To continue waiting for digits after this application has finished playing files, the WaitExten application should be used. The 'langoverride' option explicity specifies which language to attempt to use for the requested sound files. If a 'context' is specified, this is the dialplan context that this application will use when exiting to a dialed extension. If one of the requested sound files does not exist, call processing will be terminated."

So, it appears that Background still waits for user input before subsequent processing can occur. Am I off base here?

Thanks

 

[jroper]

My understanding is the background will play the files, e.g. in an IVR menu, but if you have been there before and know what buttons to press, it will allow you to press them while the sound file is playing, and move on,

playback forces you to listen to the message before allowing any further input.

So it will depend what you want to achieve. Your purpose may be achieved with something like a background followed by a wait, or just a playback.

It's difficult to advise without a clear understanding of what you want to do.

TFoT may be more help than me:-

http://downloads.oreilly.com/books/9780596510480.pdf

Joe