Frequently Asked Questions
The questions we are asked most often about recording data liberation, platform migration, compliance retention and intelligent quality inspection.
What is "recording data liberation"?
Recording data liberation means extracting historical call recordings that are locked inside a proprietary recording platform into an open, universal, long-term-preservable format — normally WAV/PCM — while preserving dual-channel separation and call metadata. The organization is no longer tied to the original vendor platform, its licences or its hardware, and the historical audio becomes freely searchable, transcribable, analyzable and archivable.
Can NICE .nmf recording files be converted to WAV?
Yes. .nmf (NICE Media File) is the proprietary container used by NICE Engage / Interaction Management; the audio inside is commonly G.729A, A-law/µ-law or ADPCM, so ordinary players cannot open it. Shanghai Wanchun built an in-house NMF parser that first identifies the real internal codec, then decodes it to linear PCM, batch-converting losslessly to standard WAV while preserving agent/customer dual-channel separation and call metadata. Simply renaming the extension or force-converting with a generic tool usually produces pure noise because the codec is misdetected.
Our recording system is decommissioned or out of support — can the historical recordings still be recovered?
Usually yes. We do not depend on the original platform still being bootable — we parse the storage media and files directly. As long as the disks, tapes or backup files still exist, the container can be read and the audio and metadata reconstructed. We have handled NICE, Verint / Audiolog, Avaya (formerly Witness), Genesys, Calabrio, Red Box, ASC, Eyretel, Dictaphone and Racal platforms, as well as legacy DAT/DLT/DDS tape media. Vendor support having ended, licences having expired, or servers having been decommissioned does not block the data rescue.
Will call metadata be lost when historical recordings are migrated?
They should not be — and this is the single most important question to ask when evaluating a migration proposal. Once recordings lose their call time, agent ID, calling/called numbers, call direction and business reference numbers, they are just a pile of unsearchable audio files, effectively useless for compliance retrieval. Our approach is to extract the metadata from the original platform's index database or container alongside the audio, map it to the audio files, and deliver it with them (exportable as database tables or index files), so that after migration the recordings remain precisely searchable by time, agent, customer and other criteria.
Why does dual-channel (agent/customer separation) matter so much?
Because almost every speech-analytics capability rests on knowing who said what. Dual-channel recording places the agent on one channel and the customer on the other, so transcription can attribute speech accurately without speaker diarization. That is what makes quality-inspection rules (did the agent read the mandatory disclosure? did they interrupt the customer?), silence and talk-over analysis, and customer sentiment detection meaningful. Once the channels are mixed down to mono during conversion or migration, those capabilities cannot be recovered — which is why channel separation must be preserved at the very first conversion step.
How long must call recordings be retained?
Retention periods are set by industry regulation and jurisdiction, so there is no single answer: recordings of financial and securities trading calls must typically be kept for years in most markets (commonly 3–7, longer in some cases), while insurance, healthcare and public safety each have their own rules, and recordings involved in litigation or investigation must be preserved until the matter closes. In practice the harder problem is not "how long to keep" but "kept yet unretrievable" — the audio sits inside a decommissioned proprietary platform and cannot be produced in time when it is called for. Our recommendation is therefore to plan for the longest applicable period and to store recordings in an open format, with metadata, on storage independent of the original vendor. For the exact period, defer to your own legal and compliance teams.
Can recordings on decades-old tapes still be read?
In most cases yes, but the sooner the better. DAT, DLT and DDS tapes suffer binder shedding and sticking over time, and the drives needed to read them are increasingly hard to source. We provide an end-to-end service: tape retrieval, reading on dedicated hardware, proprietary-format parsing and digitization. We start with a media condition assessment and trial reads, confirm what proportion is readable, then process in bulk, finally delivering standard WAV with metadata and integrity validation. For tapes already showing read errors we salvage segment by segment rather than writing off the whole reel.
How does a recording migration project typically run?
A typical project has four stages. First, sample validation: the client supplies a small set of real recordings, we parse out the audio and metadata and hand back listenable results, confirming that codec, channels and metadata mapping are all correct — this usually takes a few business days and is the most concrete way to judge a vendor's capability. Second, scoping: total volume, storage location, delivery format and target platform are agreed. Third, bulk processing: conversion and validation run in batches, fully traceable and reconcilable. Fourth, delivery and acceptance: standard WAV plus a metadata index are produced, with sampled comparison and integrity checks. Overall duration depends on data volume and media condition, ranging from a few weeks to several months.
Recordings are sensitive data — how is security ensured during processing?
We support on-premises processing at the client site: the parsing and conversion software runs inside the client's own data centre or private cloud, the recordings never leave the client's network boundary, and we supply the tooling and technical support. We also sign non-disclosure agreements, restrict the personnel with access, and retain operational audit logs on request. For highly sensitive sectors such as finance, insurance and public safety, on-premises deployment with data never leaving the client's domain is our default recommendation.
Once the recordings are liberated, what analysis can be done on them?
Once converted to an open format with dual channels intact, historical recordings can be fed into a modern speech stack: full-volume transcription, keyword and compliance-script search, intelligent quality inspection covering 100% of calls rather than the few percent a human team can sample, customer sentiment and complaint-risk detection, and agent script-effectiveness analysis feeding intelligent training. Shanghai Wanchun also builds and implements intelligent outbound calling, intelligent quality inspection and intelligent training products, so clients can either take back just their data or have us deliver the downstream analytics and applications as well.
To evaluate feasibility, what is the first step?
Send a small set of real recordings for a trial parse. Tell us the original platform and version, the file extension, the approximate data volume and the storage media, and provide a few sample files that can be de-identified; we will extract the audio and metadata and return listenable results together with a technical write-up. This step requires no change to your production systems and is the most direct test of whether the approach works. Contact us at sales@springsay.com or +86 021 50308313.
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