The format sitting in old archives
WMA arrived when Windows Media Player was the centre of most people's audio, and for years it was the default output of Windows Sound Recorder and a long line of handheld dictaphones sold to lawyers, doctors and journalists. Those devices lasted, which is why WMA files keep surfacing in archives decades later.
Anyone digging through an old shared drive or a retired recorder tends to find WMA rather than MP3, and then discovers that modern tools quietly dropped support for it. The audio is perfectly readable; it is the software around it that moved on.
What to expect from older WMA recordings
Age is usually the real issue, not the format. A WMA from a 2006 dictaphone was likely recorded in mono at a low bitrate through a small built-in microphone, because storage was expensive and the device was designed for a voice held close to it. Speech recorded that way from across a room will be thin.
None of that is unfixable, and it is worth transcribing anyway: an imperfect transcript of an archive recording is still searchable, quotable and vastly faster to work through than the audio. Expect to spend more time on the review pass, particularly on names and numbers, than you would with a modern recording.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need Windows Media Player or a converter first?
No. Upload the WMA directly. Converting it to another format beforehand adds a step and, if the converter re-compresses the audio, can make the transcript slightly worse rather than better.
Will a lossless WMA file work as well?
Yes. WMA exists in several variants including a lossless one, and all of them upload the same way. Lossless versions give our engine the cleanest possible version of whatever was originally recorded.
Can you handle a DRM-protected WMA?
No, and neither can anything else without the licence. Files bought from old music stores were often locked to one machine. Recordings you made yourself on a dictaphone or PC are not protected and work normally.