Digitaliserenvan video outlines Memnon's expertise in digitizing large volumes of audiovisual archives in a cost-effective manner. Memnon has facilities across Europe and has digitized over 700,000 hours of content. The document discusses various video and audio tape formats that require preservation, threats to audiovisual heritage like deterioration and obsolescence, and recommendations for digitization including selecting appropriate destination file formats, metadata handling, and quality control. Outsourcing digitization can provide benefits over doing it in-house like faster processing and expert quality control, though keeping archives on-site has advantages as well.

1. Digitaliserenvan video Michel Merten CEO

2. Digitaliseren van video Ensure the physical preservation of audiovisual archives has the same meaning as restore our cathedrals Emmanuel Hoog (Pres. Fiat)

4. Belgium

5. Sweden

6. Also providing “in house” services (set-up, media architecture, training, project-management, … on site)

7. Involved in the digitization of more than 700,000 hours of audiovisual archives of most analog and digital formats.

8. Large scale audiovisual digitization and migration at a very competitive price through strong project management and optimized workflows

9. Expertise in database and metadata management

11. Most lines equipped with automated QA data analysis

13. Audiovisual archives in the world The European audiovisual archives represent 50 million hours on a global estimate of 200 million hours. An estimated 80% of these materials are in danger.

14. Major audiovisual archives in Europe INA (France) more than 2 million hours AV Archives.In 2015, Ina should have digitized all its archives BBC has 1 million hours of audiovisual archives (4 million of physical items) Beeld & Geluid (Holland) has 700,000 hours of AV archives VRT has 330,000 hours of video and 90,000 hours of audio SONUMA - RTBF (Belgium) more than 100,000 hours of AV archives

15. Video tape typical carriers

16. Video tape typical carriers 2 inch Quadruplex 1 inch U-Matic BETAMAX VHS BETACAM SP / SX DIGITAL BETACAM DV CAM DVCPRO / DVCPRO HD HD CAM ... ... ... ... ... ...

17. 2 inch Quadruplex videotape It was developed and released for the broadcast television industry in 1956 by Ampex A typical 4,800-foot (1,500 m) reel of 2-inch quad tape holds approximately 1 hour of recorded material at 15 inches per second (381 mm/s or 1.37 km/h).

18. 1 inch Type C Co-developed and introduced by Ampex and Sony in 1976. It became the replacement in the professional video and television broadcast industries for the then-incumbent Quadruplex open-reel format, due to the smaller size

19. U-matic ¾ inches It was developed by Sony in 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette. known as 'three-quarter-inch‘

20. Betamax It was developed by Sony in 1975. half-inch professional videotape products

21. VHS (Video Home System) a consumer-level video standard developed by JVC released in 1976. Variation : Super VHS VHS C D9

22. Betacam It was developed by Sony in 1982. half-inch professional videotape products. Variants : Betacam SP / Betacam SX / Digital Betacam / MPEG IMX / HDCAM

23. DVCPRO developed by Panasonic and introduced in 1995 DVCPRO uses locked audio and 4:1:1 chromasubsampling for both 50 Hz and 60 Hz variants to reduce generation loss.Audio is available only in the 16-bit/48 kHz variant. Variants: DVCPRO50 (video data rate 50 Mbit/s) DVCPRO Progressive DVCPRO HD (up to 100 Mbit/s for 50/60 frame/s modes)

24. DV CAM It was launched in 1996 with joint efforts of leading producers of video camera recorders. DV is a format for recording and playing back digital video.

25. Somevideo playback equipments

26. Some video playback equipments

27. Threats to the preservation of audiovisual heritage Deterioration of the carriers : chemical decomposition, physical deterioration No backup Obsolescence of formats and playback equipment Lack of information relating to the archives Loss of knowledge indifference: not cost effective, no interest in No budget

28. Threats to the preservation of audiovisual heritage

29. Most EndangeredAudiovisualCarriers They are all in danger if they are not stored in good condition It is clear that the most endangered carriers are not necessarily the oldest Magnetic digital tapes are similar in materials and construction to other magnetic tapes, and suffer from similar physical and chemical problems. Most endangered carriers : video -2”, 1”, U-Matic (1/2’’) Most endangered carriers : audio- Direct cut records (acetate) - DAT’s

31. Audio : WAVE or BWF; 24bit/48 or 96 kHz

32. Video : JPEG2000 LossLess compression is getting momentum (LOC, INA)

33. Video : MXF IMX 50 (or 25) Mb/s OP 1A is much in use at broadcasters

34. QualityA/D converters and encoders is key

35. Cleaning of video tapes improve much playback quality

36. Automated Quality Control : NOA/QUADRIGA for audio and InterraBaton for video (allow to monitor the digitization process)

37. High quality equipment and experienced engineers are essential

39. Specific preservation problems / recommendations Digital files carriers selection There are no “best” carrier for digital files preservation CD-R, DVD-R, Blu-Ray… (whether standard, gold, platinum, glass, or whatever) are marketing tools, not archiving standards; LTO tapes is the standard carrier for video files. But it has also limited life time. The solution is continuous migration and regular quality control. If you cannot control the quality of your digital files (regular professional quality checks on the carriers) and prepare new migrations, you are at major risk to lose your digital archives. Semi-automated solution exist (robotic library) … or service providers

40. Specific preservation problems / recommendations Metadata is the key in the digital world! Don’t transform your well documented analogue archive to a digital nightmare One of the keys of a preservation project is in the proper preparation / handling of the digital files database structure (UID, file structuring, …) Think about descriptive, administrative, technical metadata you will need in the future – think in term of OAIS model (Open Archival Information System) XML is a must to insure minimum interoperability; no standard metadata format yet in audiovisual. METS schema from the Library of Congress can be used as reference.

42. Digitizationis made by experts in thisfield

43. Archives are digitizedfaster (ingestwalls)

44. Human and AutomatedQuality control

47. Cash out lower if you have the equipment and the people to make the digitization

49. Once digitizationiscompleted, equipmentisuseless

51. THANK YOU ! http://www.iasa-web.org : International association of sound and audiovisual archives www.fiatifta.org : International federation of television archives http://www.prestocentre.eu michel.merten@memnon.eu