CHANNEL COMPRESSION

1 . A method of logging multi-channel audio signals, the method comprising:

receiving a first audio input signal over a first audio channel and a second audio input signal over a second audio channel, the first audio channel and the second audio channel forming portions of a multi-channel call;

generating supplemental information representative of characteristics of the first audio input signal, the second audio input signal, or both;

after generating the supplemental information, combining the first audio input signal and the second audio input signal to form an audio output signal of a single-channel format; and

storing the generated supplemental information in association with an identifier of the audio output signal,

wherein at least a portion of the generated supplemental information is sufficient to enable information associated with the first audio input signal, the second audio input signal, or both to be derived from the audio output signal of the single-channel format.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the supplemental information comprises one or more of:

processing the first audio input signal either fully or in part with a first set of audio mining components to identify characteristics of the first audio input signal; and

processing the second audio input signal either fully or in part with a second set of audio mining components to identify characteristics of the second audio input signal.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the first set of audio mining components is identical to the second set of audio mining components.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein:

the first set of audio mining components includes one or more audio mining components; and

the second set of audio mining components includes one or more audio mining components.

5 . The method of claim 2 , wherein an audio mining component comprises: a speech/non-speech detecting component, a speaker change detecting component, a topic detecting component, a named-entity detecting component, a volume detecting component, and a language detecting component.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the generated supplemental information includes information representative of one or more segment types present in at least the first channel, the second channel, or both.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the one or more segment types comprise one or more of the following: no speaker detected, one channel-specific speaker detected, and multiple concurrent channel-specific speakers detected.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the supplemental information comprises:

redacting at least a portion of the first audio input signal to render its corresponding sensitive content unintelligible; and

storing the portion of the first audio input signal as supplemental information metadata.