xovox xtract

Resurrect Your Data

Formats and storage media do not last forever. Our flagship XTRACT service helps organizations retrieve valuable data from outmoded voice archives, regardless of formatting.
problem

Sunset Tech

Many organizations record telephone traffic, including stock trading floors, emergency hotlines, and contact centers. Sometimes, the recordings are retained for years, or even decades.

These voice logging systems, manufactured over the years by NICE, Verint, Genesys, Calabrio, Racal, Eyretel, Dictaphone, and many others, often archive the voice data in a manufacturer-specific format and into a variety of storage media such as hard drives, magnetic tape, optical disk, enterprise storage (Centera), or cloud. They are designed so that the archived recordings can only be replayed through same system that recorded them.

When these systems are retired, it often means the end of the road for the data trapped in their unreadable formats on outdated media.
Solution

XTRACT Rescue & Reclaim

Fortunately, XOVOX offers XTRACT, a service for complete retrieval of stored voice data records – without the need for the original voice logging system.

For organizations switching to a new call recording platform, our XTRACT service allows you to avoid retaining the old system for replay of the old calls, along with its pricey annual support contract. For companies that have years of recordings on magnetic tape (and perhaps don't even have the old logger), we can extract the recordings directly from the tape without the need for the old long-gone system. We convert the audio to an open format which is guaranteed to replay on any modern platform.

See our roster of supported systems. XTRACT can export call data from most voice loggers which have been used over the past 30 years.

We are flexible and will work with you to find the best method that comfortably fits your security model - we can do the work on-site, or remotely, or in the cloud or at our secure facility.

How We Do It

XTRACT graphic
  • XOVOX XTRACT fetches the call catalog and the audio directly from your source archive (files, tapes, disks, relational databases) without any need for the original software.
  • We can perform a wholesale bulk retrieval of all of the audio data, or we can extract just the excerpted catalog and audio for a given channel or date range. Extracted data is delivered in an open format, commonly WAV files (for audio) and text for metadata.
  • Our XPAND service can prepare the extracted data for subsequent ingestion into your new logger, your audio archive, or other system.
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Key Benefits

  • Retrieve voice data from old archives and media
  • Rescue both audio and per-call metadata
  • Flexibility to do the work on premise, or remotely, or in our secure facility, or in the cloud
  • Does not require original equipment
  • Bulk or focused retrieval options available
Case Study

Reopening A Murder Investigation

A southern Ohio murder investigation from 1992 was going nowhere until new evidence was introduced. A witness came forward with a clue more than years after the murder to suggest that a call placed to 911 should be examined again.
Explore case study
FAQ

XTRACT FAQ

In our experience, the project duration is largely determined by the total number of recordings. Smaller jobs (up to 1 million recordings) typically take 1-2 weeks; medium-sized jobs (around 50 million recordings) can take 6-8 weeks, and larger jobs (200+ million recordings) may take months or even a year.

We are flexible and will work with you to find the best method that comfortably fits your security specifications. Your options include:
  • Ship the raw recorder data to our secure processing facility; or

  • Upload the data to a cloud provider for us to process on virtual machines; or

  • Provide us with a Linux processing environment with VPN remote access so that we can do the work directly in your data center; or

  • Let us come to you. We will travel to your office with all necessary equipment and servers and perform the work there.

As you can see from our list of known recorder formats, we can work with over 35 formats.

Our primary goal is to convert recordings to an audio file format which is guaranteed to replay on any modern computing platform (Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android).

A key deciding factor is what you plan to do with your extracted audio. Is it solely to satisfyyour retention rules or to resolve an occasional customer support issue (in which case you probably want to minimize storage space)? Or will you run speech analytics software in order to perform speech-to-text conversion or gauge customer satisfaction (in which case you want to maximize audio quality)?

If minimizing storage is your goal, then we recommend WAV files with GSM 06.10 compression. If maximum audio quality is your priority, then we recommend WAV files with G.711 compression (which also supports stereo). Other file formats and compressions are also available on request.

Our default metadata format is tab-delimited UTF-8 text. But with our XPAND service, we can convert to any text format. Depending on the expected destination for the extracted audio, this might be XML (for subsequent import into ASC), CSV (for import into Verint), TXT (for import into Red Box), or even Excel (for smaller jobs). As long as you can provide a spec, we can usually convert into it.

Check out our list of supported metadata target formats. Even if your format is not on our list, we can probably generate it if you provide the spec.

This calculation depends on many factors, including: (a) which audio compression algorithm (or “codec”) was used in the original recorder; (b) which codec will we convert to; (c) did the original recorder perform “silence suppression” (i.e. did it stop recording during long periods of silence); (d) were the original recordings in stereo (and do you want them converted to mono). Depending on the answers to these questions, the delivered data might possibly be 10x smaller than the original, or perhaps 10x larger than the original. But in most projects, we see the delivered audio being about 2x larger than the original files. In other words: if your original audio archive was 10 terabytes, then the delivery will probably be around 20 terabytes. But there are no guarantees until we review your actual data!

We will deliver all metadata fields that we find in the original system. The exact fields are dependent on the recorder, but at a minimum will always include the recording start/stop timestamps and phone extension. Most modern systems will also include ANI (aka Caller ID), DNIS, agent name, and call direction. If additional fields are present (e.g. business unit, CTI date, or FX trunk name), we will deliver those too.

Project cost is largely driven by the volume of recordings. This might be calculated based on total file count (for modern recorders which store to disk) or total media count (for older recorders which store to magnetic tape or DVD-RAM). If your recorder uses a relational database (and not all do), there is also a cost for extracting per-call metadata from the database(s). There may also be additional cost if your recorder archives to enterprise storage (e.g. EMC Centera).

We perform multiple quality assurance steps throughout the conversion process. For example, at the beginning of any project, we always perform a detailed inventory of your existing data, including an exact file count. Then, upon project completion, we ensure that we deliver precisely the same number of files (or an exception list explaining why some conversions failed due to corrupted files, damaged magnetic tapes, or other reasons). We will also compare the audio durations of the original and converted files to confirm that they are the same.

As long as the formats are on our roster of known recorders, then yes we can convert everything! In fact, it is to your advantage to combine multiple formats into a single project in order to take advantage of our volume discounts.
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TESTIMONIALS

Triumph and Testament

XOVOX’s unique services are often game-changing for our clients. See what they have to say in their own words.

We identified and met with 3 potential service providers then evaluated their proposed solutions. XOVOX’s presentation was professional and clearly defined our requirements along with the desired outcome. Andy and his team communicated with the Bulldog team throughout the project then delivered the project exactly as they promised. XOVOX has deep expertise in audio conversion and was a great partner.

– Sharon Miller, President & CEO, Bulldog Consulting Services

XOVOX helped us meet our state’s requirements for documenting and retaining government proceedings. From the start, we were confident we had picked the right company to do this job. Their knowledge, thoroughness and professionalism were great. And we will call on them again.

– Aly Jabrocki, MLIS, CA
Director and State Archivist, Colorado State Archives

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XOVOX are the experts in voice data. We specialize in finding elegant solutions to difficult and esoteric problems.
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