JPH0662109A - Automatic answering telephone equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an automatic answering telephone equipment which reproduces only desired contents in a short time at the time of reproducing message contents. CONSTITUTION:This equipment is provided with a recording processing device provided with a special tone generator 10 which generates a special tone and a recording controller 5 which records the voice of an originating subscriber or causes the special tone generator 10 to generate the special tone to record it, a reproducing processing device provided with a special tone detector 15 which skips the voice by fastforwarding function or the like till detection of the special tone and a reproducing controller 6 which causes this detector 15 to detect the special tone and reproduces the recorded voice for a certain time after this detection, and a recorder 8 which records the voice or the special tone.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an answering machine, and more particularly to an answering machine which can quickly retrieve a desired message when there are a plurality of messages.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a telephone with an answering machine (an answering machine) has an automatic call receiving function (automatic answering function) for automatically receiving a call from a calling party, and the answering machine is in a recordable state. When set, the message contents from the caller can be recorded in a recording device such as a tape recorder.
Further, the called party can reproduce the message contents of the calling party recorded in the recording device and listen to the message.

[0003]

However, when the called party hears many recorded message contents (a plurality of messages) from the calling party, the recording device is reproduced from the beginning to the end. It had the drawback of having to ask. Further, when the called party listens to the message contents by performing a fast-forward operation of the recording device during reproduction, there is a drawback that the message contents are skipped.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an answering machine which can quickly retrieve a desired message from recorded messages.

[0005]

In order to achieve this object, the present invention causes a recording device to record the contents of a call in response to an incoming call from a calling party, and the recording device reproduces the recording as required. In an answering machine, a special sound generating device that generates a special sound according to the type of call content and a special sound generated from the special sound generating device at the time of recording an incoming call from the caller can be recorded together. And a recording control device.

Further, the recording control device is adapted to record a special sound a plurality of times during the recording.

[0007]

Function: The answering machine is set to the automatic incoming call state. When an incoming call is received from the caller in this state, the recording control device causes the special sound generating device to generate a first special sound and records the sound in the recording device. Next, send a pre-stored message (“Please tell me your name.” Then the caller will give his / her name (“○○”), so after the predetermined time has passed, the second The special sound of is generated from the special sound generator and recorded on the recording device. Then, the caller speaks his / her own message and records it on the recording device. The caller hangs up after talking about the requirement. In this way, there are a plurality of incoming calls such as Mr. XX, Mr. XX, and Mr. □□, and each message is recorded in the recording device together with the special sound.

When the called party plays back the recorded content later, for example, while fast-forwarding, when the first special sound is uttered from the speaker, it is necessary to confirm the name (Mr. XX) and hear the message. If it is determined that there is not, the message content is fast-forwarded until the second first special sound is uttered. 2 above
If the th th special sound is uttered, its name (×
Check Mr. X), and if you need to hear the message, ask the message. Therefore, even when there are incoming calls from a plurality of people, only the required message can be reproduced within a short time.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of the embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, the telephone 1 on the other side is
It is connected to the exchange 3 via the telephone line 2a. The answering machine T according to the present invention is connected to the exchange 3 via a telephone line 2b.

The answering machine T has a message processing device 4
And a call circuit 20. The call circuit 20 includes a handset (not shown). The message processing device 4 includes a recording control device 5 for performing a recording process, a reproduction control device 6 for performing a reproduction process, a recording / reproduction switching device 7 for switching the recording control device 5 and the reproduction control device 6, and a voice recording. And a speaker 9 for outputting a voice.

The recording control device 5 uses a special sound (for example,
The special sound generating device 10 for generating 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz), and the voice switching device 11 for switching and recording the voice of the caller and the special sound emitted from the special sound generating device 10.

The reproduction control device 6 includes a fast-forward device 12 for skipping the recorded contents, a reproduction device 13 for reproducing the recorded contents and outputting them to the speaker 9, and the fast-forward device 1.
The playback switching device 14 switches between the 2 and the playback device 13, and the special sound detection device 15 detects a special sound from the recorded content.

Next, the operation of the embodiment will be described separately for recording and reproduction with reference to FIGS. At the time of recording First, the recording operation when the caller sends a voice will be described with reference to FIG.

During recording, a recording button (not shown) is operated, and control is transferred to the recording control device 5 by the recording / playback switching device 7 shown in FIG. 1 (recording mode). As shown in FIG. 2, an outgoing call from the calling party is received by the answering machine T (step S11). This incoming call is detected by an automatic incoming call detecting device (not shown), the recording switching device 11 causes the special sound generating device 10 to generate a first special sound (1000 Hz), and the first special sound is transmitted to the recording device 8. Record (step S12). Then, when a pre-stored "Please tell me your name" message is sent to the calling party, the calling party responds with "○○", and this reply is recorded on the recording device 8 for a certain period of time. (Step S
13).

Upon completion of recording for a certain period of time, the recording switching device 11 causes the special sound generating device 10 to generate a second special sound (20
00 Hz) is generated and recorded by the recording device 8 (step S14). Next, when the message "Please tell me the message contents" stored in advance is transmitted to the calling party, it is recorded on the recording device 8 until the voice transmission from the calling party is cut off (step S15). Recording ends when transmission from the caller is blocked. At the time of reproduction Next, the operation of the called party for reproducing the recorded content will be described with reference to FIG. In this case, the control is transferred to the reproduction control device 6 by the recording / reproduction switching device 7.

First, it is determined whether or not there is a recorded message in the recording device 8 (step S21). If there is no message, playback ends. If there is a message, the playback switching device 1
It is determined whether the special sound recorded in step 4 is the first special sound or the second special sound (step S22).

When it is determined that the sound is the first special sound, the reproduction switching device 14 causes the reproduction device 13 to reproduce the recorded content, and the speaker 9 outputs the voice of the first message content (in this case, " It ’s ○○ ”). This reproduction operation is performed until the special sound detection device 15 detects the next second special sound from the content recorded in the recording device 8 (step S2).
3).

When it is determined in step S22 that the sound is the second special sound, the reproduction switching device 14 causes the fast-forward device 12 to operate.
Lets you fast-forward the recording. This fast-forwarding operation is performed until the special sound detection device 15 detects the next first special sound from the content recorded in the recording device 8 or until there is no message (step S24).

When the special sound is detected in steps S23 and S24, it is determined in step S21 whether or not the recording from the caller is completed. If all the messages are reproduced, the reproduction process is completed. If all the recordings from the caller are not completed, the processing from step S21 to step S24 is repeated.

In addition, "XX-san" is followed by "XX-san",
Further, even if there is a sequential incoming call such as “Mr.
In each case, "first special sound""name""second"
Record "special sound" and "message contents".

If it is desired to know only the name of the person who received the call at the time of reproduction, fast-forwarding can be performed until the "first special sound" is uttered, and the name of the caller can be known. Also, the message content may be reproduced only when it is necessary to hear the name and hear the message content by using the first special sound as a guide.

In this embodiment, the second message is received after a fixed time has passed after the completion of the first message. However, after the first message has been completed, the push dial is pressed to the caller. The answering machine may receive the push tone, and the second message may be received.

[0024]

As is apparent from the above description,
According to the present invention, since the special sound is recorded in accordance with the content of the call from the calling party, it is possible to perform the fast-forward operation by using the special sound as a guide when reproducing. Therefore, when reproducing a large number of message contents, it is possible to hear only a part of the message, hear an outline of the message contents, or select and listen to the necessary message contents.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart during a recording operation of the above embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a time chart during the recording operation.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart at the time of reproduction operation of the above embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 4 ... Message processing device 5 ... Recording control device 6 ... Playback control device 7 ... Recording / playback switching device 8 ... Recording device 9 ... Speaker 10 ... Special sound generating device 11 ... Recording switching device 12 ... Fast-forwarding device 13 ... Playing device 14 ... Playback switching device 15 ... Special sound detection device

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Yoshihisa Kanaka 15-1 Naedai-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya-shi, Aichi Within Brother Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Michiyo Amano 15-15 Naeyo-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya, Aichi No. 1 in Brother Industry Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Ritsuko Kagami No. 15-1, Naeshiro-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An answering machine which records the contents of a call to a recording device in response to an incoming call from a calling party and reproduces the recording by a reproducing device as necessary, and outputs a special sound according to the type of the contents of the call. An answering machine, comprising: a special sound generating device that generates a sound; and a recording control device that also records a special sound generated from the special sound generating device when recording an incoming call from the caller. apparatus. 2. The answering machine according to claim 1, wherein the recording control device records a special sound a plurality of times during the recording.