NICE News Special Edition

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AN UP CLOSE LOOK AT SCENARIO REPLAY^TM WITH NICE SYSTEMS' JIMMY LUTZ

In this month's issue of NICE News Special Edition, Jimmy Lutz, director of marketing for NICE System's Public Safety Division, answers questions about Scenario Replay^TM, NICE's advanced solution for retrieving, reconstructing, replaying and sharing recorded interactions. Jimmy is a key member of the NICE management team and the driving force behind many of NICE's innovative public safety solutions. He is a frequent speaker at APCO and NENA events and has published articles in leading public safety magazines.

NICE News: Jimmy, for those who are not familiar with Scenario Replay, can you tell us what it is?

Jimmy Lutz: In the past, PSAPs were relegated to long-winded processes to find all of the recordings associated with a particular incident. Scenario Replay's intuitive Windows® interface reduces this process to a fraction of the time it would ordinarily take. You can search by time and date, position, the caller's ANI (phone number) or ALI (location), and even radio IDs, aliases, talkgroup IDs, and so on. Another important feature of Scenario Replay is that it enables you to reconstruct incidents, exactly as they unfolded. All of the interactions relating to a specific incident - phone and radio - can be reproduced on a graphical timeline in the sequence they occurred.

NICE News: I have a trunked radio system. How does Scenario Replay work with that?

Jimmy Lutz: NICE has worked closely with radio system providers such as Motorola and M/A-COM to perfect the science of capturing and reconstructing trunked radio communications. Through integration with the various trunked radio systems, we're able to capture data along with the radio transmissions that Scenario Replay in turn can use to retrieve recordings and reconstruct events. For example, using Scenario Replay, it's possible to pinpoint transmissions that occurred within a certain timeframe on individual radios or within specific talkgroups, and then piece all of that information together on a graphical timeline. Without the trunked radio integration and Scenario Replay, it would be difficult, if not impossible to do that. Scenario Replay can literally reduce the time it takes to research incidents and reconstruct scenarios from days to hours, minutes or even seconds.

NICE News: What makes NICE's Scenario Replay different from other solutions?

Jimmy Lutz: One of the things that really makes Scenario Replay stand out is its ability to reconstruct an incident in a very visual and intuitive way. You can literally see all of the interactions that occurred from the time the 9-1-1 call came in and assistance was dispatched to the final resolution of the call, including all of the radio communications in the field. Scenario Replay even gives you visual cues to help you better understand exactly what happened and when. For instance, icons placed alongside the audio bars might signify the formation of a supergroup, or an emergency situation, such as an officer hitting the "panic" button on a radio. Another example would be an "R" for busy/reject. This would signify that a radio attempted to make a transmission but was rejected by the system for one reason or another.

You can see examples of some of the visual cues Scenario Replay displays pictured to the right. This visual information can really make a difference when it comes to reconstructing an incident.

NICE News: I'm having trouble picturing the Scenario Replay interface you're describing? Can you show me what it looks like?

Jimmy Lutz: The picture below is an actual screen shot from the Scenario Replay user interface. As you can see, you can access virtually everything on one screen. You can search for calls and view your search results, both in a list format and in a graphical representation (which you see at the bottom of the screen).

NICE News: Are there any other features of Scenario Replay that I should know about?

Jimmy Lutz: Yes, in developing Scenario Replay, we recognized that PSAPs needed flexibility on the playback side from the standpoint of reconstructing events. So we designed Scenario Replay with that in mind. Scenario Replay offers two playback modes: sequential and mixed sorted. Through our many years in public safety, we've found that PSAPs will use different playback modes depending upon the situation.
In the mixed sorted mode, Scenario Replay replays the phone and radio transmissions in the exact order in time that they occurred. If there's any overlap in communications (for instance, the dispatch communications and the first responder communications taking place in the field), you'll hear that. In contrast, the sequential mode will replay each portion of the incident separately from start to finish - beginning with the 9-1-1 call (in its entirety), then the dispatch, followed by the first responder communications.
Silence, interspersed within the 9-1-1 call or radio transmissions, can also be very telling and Scenario Replay gives you the option of incorporating the silent periods or leaving them out.

Another great feature is the ability to adjust AGC (Automatic Gain Control) on replay. Sometimes the two sides of a conversation (e.g. the 9-1-1 caller and the 9-1-1 call-taker) are recorded at different volume levels. With a click on the Scenario Replay AGC icon, you can equalize the amplitude and hear what transpired much more clearly. If you need to listen more precisely, Scenario Replay even lets you replay the call slower than normal speed, without affecting the pitch of the caller's or call-taker's voice.

NICE News: I can see how Scenario Replay would help with the reconstruction of incidents. But what about the reproduction of these recordings for district attorneys and other interested parties? Can Scenario Replay help there too?

Jimmy Lutz: Yes, once you've reconstructed an incident using Scenario Replay, it's a simple matter to save those recordings as one .wav file. If necessary, you can insert spoken time and date to comply with evidentiary requirements. The .wav files can be saved onto a CD or even emailed to a district attorney. This obsoletes the old way of copying and sharing recordings - namely, by re-recording them onto audio cassettes. PSAPs that have for years employed dedicated resources, working 24/7, to keep up with growing backlogs of such requests, are welcoming this change.

NICE News: I heard that NICE just came out with a new version (rev. 3) of Scenario Replay? What new features are in that?

Jimmy Lutz: We've added several new features to Scenario Replay version 3 to make it even more

powerful. One notable feature is the ability to capture and visually display ANI/ALI re-bids. Sometimes mobile calls will have multiple ANI/ALI data sets sent to the PSAP. Capturing this re-bid location data is critically important because a mobile caller's location (transmitted as longitude, latitude and altitude) can change throughout the duration of the call.

Whether the ANI/ALI is generated by a landline or a wireless phone, the data is captured and revealed through Scenario Replay's graphical display. By way of example, take a look at the screen shot to the right. Each house icon on the graphical display signifies a recording for which ANI/ALI data was captured. The detailed ANI/ALI information (phone numbers, locations) is listed in a separate ANI/ALI window.

NICE News: Are there any other new features you can tell us about?

Jimmy Lutz: Our new version of Scenario Replay also allows you to create voice or text annotations for your recordings. These annotations can be saved and then displayed or replayed at a later time. This feature is especially useful for flagging certain types of calls that you may want to later find, replay, or distribute (for example, those pertaining to domestic violence).

To insert a text annotation, you would simply drag the time bar on the Scenario Replay graphical display to the transmission you want to annotate, right click on it, and type in your annotation. It's very simple. All you need to record a voice annotation is a standard microphone hooked up to your PC.

NICE News: This all sounds great, but what can Scenario Replay do for my agency? How can my agency benefit?

Jimmy Lutz: Scenario Replay can improve all facets of your comm. center's operations. First and foremost, it will make you more productive and effective in reconstructing incidents and delivering recorded voice evidence. By bringing many different pieces of information together into one place, and in a visual format, Scenario Replay can also give you hidden insight that could otherwise be missed - insight that might be critical to reconstructing an incident, prove crucial to solving a case, or help you improve response in the future.

Want to learn more about Scenario Replay? Email NICE at Welcome@nice.com or visit www.nice.com/products/multimedia/scenario_replay.php.

ABOUT JIMMY LUTZ

Jimmy Lutz is marketing director for NICE Systems, Inc. He has over 12 years' experience working for organizations in the government sector including Lockheed Martin. Jimmy is a former member of the National Guard and the U.S. Army, and a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Harvard Business School. A published author (9-1-1 Magazine, APCO Public Safety Communications Magazine, Mission Critical Communications Magazine, Radio Resource International), Jimmy has written numerous articles on the topic of recording technology and 9-1-1 centers. He is also a frequent presenter at APCO and NENA conferences.