Generally storing HTML within the database is an archaic practice. It would be more appropriate to store them in a key value format in one row and then call the specific columns within the HTML using whatever templating language you prefer. So here's an example schema I've created:

A Pen by Captain Anonymous

That's how I would format the schema for a relational database BUT if it were my data I would definitely use a NoSQL database like mongodb.

That way I could add any type of data to each object that I want. I doubt all calls use the same type of formatting.

Just always remember that your database should only contain data. Try not to put code in there as it's considered sloppy and bad practice.

Additionally, you would probably want a key value pair that stores the URL of each audio file.

You're describing two tables here, Recording and Event.

The Recording table contains data about each recording, such as:

• RecordingID
• Recorded
• Duration
• Filename

Each Recording has zero or more Events, and the Event table contains data about each event, such as:

• EventID
• RecordingID
• Timestamp
• Topic

Notice that each Event relates to a specific Recording with a RecordingID, in a many-to-one relationship: zero or more Events for each one Recording.

So, for the example you give, one row in the Recording table would contain, for example,

(1357, 2015-04-15, 21:00, Call001357.mp3),

and three rows of the Events table would have,

(4321, 1357, 00:00, "Welcome to the call"),
(4322, 1357, 04:20, "Topic One"), and
(4323, 1357, 08:54, "Topic Two").

The three Events relate to the one Recording using the RecordingID 1357.

[DELETED]

Thanks for the input guys, it's very helpful. David, I think your solution is perfect for my situation.

Any thoughts on how I would handle an anchor link in one of the events?

Just store it as http... in the text, and then your front-end software would look for that to convert it to [a href="http..."].

[DELETED]