How to convert .ivr to mp3?

Vendors who supply voicemail as mp3's?

• Suggestions for a voicemail or IVR (Interactive Voice Response) vendor, capable of saving/converting messages as .mp3 files? I've used http://www.parliant.com/phonevalet/ on my Mac, but I'm looking for a vendor/service that can handle a greater volume (more than one call at a time). Additionally, I'm looking for a vendor who can provide the following: 1) Save/Convert messages to mp3 2) Provide direct access to said mp3 files (either saving to a local computer or via FTP) 3) Provide additional caller info: phone number, answers to prompts (example: Press "1" if you're male, "2" if you're female), etc. I'm not familiar with automated phone response systems, so I'm curious if anyone has any names to offer or recommendations. While I'm open to all types of solutions, my guess is that what I'm looking for will likely be on par with the vendors used by, say, banks or airlines.

• Answer:

  I don't know how willing you are to screw around with open source software, but I have a friend who set up Asterisk, the open source PBX software, to do something similar to what you're requesting. You could dial into his Asterisk system, press 5 to "leave a message in IRC," record a short voice note, and then hang up. A script would save that note as a wav (would be trivial to convert to mp3), put it into a web-accessible location on his hard drive, and then blurt the URL to the file into our private IRC channel. It was used as a way for people who were out and about to send a voice message to everyone on IRC who was stuck at home, as in, "Hey fools, I'm at x bar, get off your computers and come meet me!" If this sounds like a solution that might work for you, I can get you some more information from him. Email's in my profile.