ZyLAB claims to have solved the challenge of searching audio clips for ediscovery with its new Audio Search Bundle.

It promises to provide technical and non-technical users involved in legal disputes, forensics, law enforcement, and lawful data interception with the ability to search, review and analyse audio data with the same ease as more traditional forms of Electronically Stored Information (ESI).

"For the Enron case, nearly a dozen FBI analysts spent 3 months transcribing 2,800 hours of audio so they could search for key phrases in the transcript," recalls Johannes C. Scholtes, chairman and chief strategy officer for ZyLAB.

"With the ZyLAB Audio Search Bundle available today, they could perform those same searches directly on the audio files - not a speech-to-text transcript - within about 5 minutes and instantly replay the segments to verify their relevance."

Written text, such as transcripts from audio recordings, cannot fully convey intent, nuance or emotion which are only discernable by human listeners. Additionally, speech-to-text technology is generally limited to dictionary entries. In contrast, the ZyLAB Audio Search Bundle transforms audio recordings into a phonetic representation of the way in which words are pronounced so that investigators can search for dictionary terms, but also proper names, company names, or brands without the need to "re-ingest" the data.

With the ZyLAB Audio Search Bundle, forensic investigators and attorneys can identify and collect audio recordings from various sources with far greater efficiency and effectiveness than was ever possible with manual processing. The software supports multiple search techniques simultaneously, such as Boolean and wildcard, leading to greater accuracy and relevance of results. The fast, iterative search helps to reduce the size of the data set and the costs for review.

"Salient evidence is just as likely to be found in audio files as it is in email," continued Scholtes. "Now a legal reviewer can open a folder of audio files, type in a query, and click on the result list to listen to the search hits in context. Finding evidence in audio files is as simple as finding a song on iTunes."

The ZyLAB Audio Search Bundle supports all industry-standard audio formats, including G711, GSM6.10, MP3 and WMA, as well as the audio component of video files. The bundle uses a fraction of the hardware required by traditional solutions and complements existing toolsets and processes, extending the capability and reach of investigators.

This optional bundle is available with the ZyLAB eDiscovery & Production System, which is fully aligned with the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), or any other ZyLAB system.