Preservation Work Area

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• Preservation Work Area
• Highlights on the first developments
• Jean-Hugues Chenot, Institut National de
  lAudiovisuel

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The Preservation Work Area

• The Objective of the 'Preservation' Work Area is
  to build and integrate the necessary blocks that
  will help in reducing the cost, and improving the
  quality and the throughput of the migration
  effort by the audiovisual archives.
• Technology working as much as possible
  unattended, automating where possible
  time-consuming repetitive tasks, detection and
  correction of problems, leaving to operators the
  decisions that cannot be automated.

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Preservation Workpackages
WP7 Information System and Integration

WP5 Robotics and Automation
WP6 Media Condition Assessment
WP5 Playback Devices
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Preservation- Media Condition Assessment

• To achieve good understanding of the way video
  tapes degrade and become unplayable
• To be able to measure in a cost-effective way
  such degradation
• To develop tools for bringing back these tapes to
  acceptable playback condition
• To help predicting behaviour of samples based on
  simple criteria
• (CRCDG-CNRS)

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Preservation-Playback Devices

• To build robust devices suitable for playing
  back and digitise with minimal operator
  intervention the analogue records containing the
  audiovisual programmes to be preserved
• Film (CTM)
• Video/audio tapes
• audio disks.

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Preservation-Robotics and Automation

• To analyse the time spent in handling, cleaning,
  labelling, rewinding, checking... operations,
  locating where time could be saved
• To provide the tools for automating the tasks
  that can be done by the machine, and limiting as
  much as possible the time-consuming manual
  operations required by preservation
• To allow as much as possible the preservation
  systems to run unsupervised, night and day

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Preservation-Robotics and Automation

• Automated Video and Audio Cassette Preservation
  tools
• Automation of Open Reel Media and disks
• Open reel media and disks are much more expensive
  to transfer than cassette media.
• Studies first, then implementation, depending on
  conclusions
• (Vectracom, Centrimage, INA)

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Preservation-Information System and Integration

• To develop the Information System that will be
  the workflow application for the preservation
  effort
• To ensure this Information System is correctly
  integrated with the tools developed within the
  Preservation Work Area, and with other existing
  transfer tools
• (ACS)

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Preservation Work Area Three Highlights

• Automatic cassette migration
• Audio tape Magneto-optical playback
• Audio disk Optical playback

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Automatic cassette migration

• Media Matters (Jim Lindner,
• http//www.media-matters.net)
• The American company in the project

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Automatic Cassette Migration Goals

• System for the Automated Migration of Media
  Archives ( )
• System design and implementation of an automated
  migration solution
• Focused on PrestoSpace goal of a factory
  approach to preservation

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System for the Automated Migration of Media
Archives

• Uses robotics and customised software and
  hardware to migrate large quantities of cassette
  contents
• Lower cost, higher speed, higher quality.

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SAMMA Robotic Handler and Control Rack
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SAMMA Robotic Handler
Library racks
Tape cleaner
Tape Player (e.g. ¾)
Tape Recorder (e.g. BetaSP)
Tape Recorder (e.g. BetaSP)
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SAMMA Control Rack
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SAMMA Control/Analysis Rack 1

• Preview Monitors
• RAID (1 4 TB standard)
• System Control
• Rack Mount UPS
• LCD Monitor Keyboard (pull-out)

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SAMMA Control/Analysis Rack 2

• A/V Router
• Time Base Corrector
• TCP/IP Switch
• Video Analyst
• Audio Analyst
• Encoder
• Rack Mount UPS 2
• Remote Control Power Switch

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Feature List

• Robotic tape handling
• Automated processing done on-site
• Expert system evaluation
• Proprietary tape cleaning and signal analysis
  technologies
• Migrates to
• tape or digital media file MXF Format, or
• Traditional magnetic media, plus XML data on
• individual Media Item
• Entire Archive
• (MXF data and XML aligned with METS, Dublin Core,
  and PBCore, Designed to provide curatorial,
  technical, and provenance information)

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Tape Cleaner

• Designed for archival masters
• No blades
• Tissue Contamination Detection system
• Optical Inspector
• Creates detailed, time-stamped metadata logs
• Can be used inside SAMMA Robotic Handler, or
  stand-alone

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Time Base Corrector

• Robust 10 Bit Signal Processing
• Accepts NTSC, PAL, and SECAM Composite,
  Component, S-Video
• Analogue Signal Analysis and Reporting

A network port on a TBC!!?!
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PrepCart

• Mobile media accessioning station (Preparation
  Cart)
• Can be used to accession all media types
• Integrated media inspection methodology and
  database
• Integrated barcode scanning and printing
• Currently being used to inspect and accession
  cassette-based magnetic media
• Also being used to barcode raw stock for using in
  SAMMA system

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Achievements

• Developed, tested and launched mobile
  Accessioning Station
• Used at Yale University to accession and inspect
  2000 U-matic cassettes
• Great user feedback
• Launching SAMMA Beta Test at Yale University,
  November 2004
• Migrating from one U-matic to two Betacam SP
  preservation masters in a single pass
• Also migrating to JPEG2000 losslessly encoded
  digital files

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Audio tape Magneto-optical playback

• Hi-Stor (http//www.histor.fr/)
• ACS (http//acsmultimedia.acsys.it/)

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Reading audio tapes by optical system to increase
the playback quality

• Degraded audio tape cannot be a hundred percent
  recovered using standard audio heads.
• Azimuth adjustment is a permanent concern.
• New techniques using laser imaging can allow to
  recover 100 of the original signal.

Playback head
Recording head
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Magneto Optical imaging principle
Hi-Stor is currently working on mechanical
integration of the magneto optical reading
device.
Polarisation rotation
The magneto optical technique can image features
as low as few microns, which is the size a
magnetic domain on audio tape.
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Analogue magneto optical playback benefits

• The resolution of the MO sensor is only limited
  by optical resolution, thus it has a sub micron
  capability. It covers entirely the audio
  bandwidth.
• The magneto optical technique can handle damaged
  audio tracks and recover the full audio signal.
• It is able to detect and compensate any variation
  of the write head azimuth.

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Early experimentations

• A set of ½ audiotapes has been recorded in a
  Studio with test signals. (All frequency range
  sine waves, chirp and saw tooth amplitude
  modulation)
• As reference these signals have been read with a
  ¼ Audio Head. This head is connected to a pure
  linear amplifier to quantify frequency response
  before signal integration and equalisation.
• As comparison, the frequency response of the
  Magneto optical technique has been measured and
  shows great potential.

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Early results on a sweep signal

• Audio Head M-O Head

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Frequency response, compared
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Magneto optical/Audio Head first results

• Frequency response is more than satisfying
• SNR being explored
• Signal post-processing studies starting (ACS)

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Audio disk Optical playback

• Institut National de lAudiovisuel
  (http//www.ina.fr)

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A 78rpm disk surface close-up

• (Source Carl Haber's, http//www-cdf.lbl.gov/av/)
  
• Using VED (Very Expensive Device !)
• Groove width 160microns
• Bright line is groove bottom.
• Lateral deviation speed is the amplitude of the
  audio signal
• Resolution finer than 1 ?m !

1mm
Small scratch
Dust particle
Groove bottom
Record surface
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Using MCD (more conventional device !)

• Using standard camera and macro lens
• Smallest detail 10?m

Source Louis Laborelli/INA
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Using specifically designed lighting

• Colour directly codes for audio signal

Source Louis Laborelli/INA
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Patented disk reader principle
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Patented disk reader principle
White Source
Condenser
Lens and Camera
Coloured filter
Disk surface (not to scale)
Mirror
Groove
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Decoding of a log sweep test

• (Earlier results)

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Future work

• Optic design improvements
• Linearity
• Insensitivity to dirt and scratches
• Ability to read over lacquer cracks

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A difficult sample !