A method for reducing digital data of an electro magnetic acoustic transducer pig that travels through a pipeline so as to detect defects by measuring an analog ultrasonic echo includes determining a size of a defect and determining a background noise at the defect. The size of the defect is determined by selecting peak values of the digital data based on a plurality of amplitude/transit time vectors indicating maxima of an ultrasound envelope, each vector being determined by three amplitude/transit time pairs. The ultrasound envelope is generated by determining a width of a respective vector ultrasound envelope for each vector. The background noise at the defect is determined by summing peak values of the digital data in time intervals so as to form an interval-specific summation value.