Richard Wright BBC. Overview. The audiovisual preservatio

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How to Preserve Audio(and video)

• Richard Wright
• BBC Information Archives
• www.prestospace.eu

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Overview

• The audiovisual preservation problem
• The digitisation factory solution
• Problems with the solution
• Digitisation
• Factory approach
• Digital Preservation
• Funding, equipment, training
• Rights

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The Problem Analogue Media
Decaying Obsolete Fragile Presto Survey, 2001 5
million hours of holdings (10 European
broadcasters)
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Decaying Obsolete Fragile

• Obsolescence at least 2/3 of the material
• Deterioration approximately 1/3 of the material
• Fragile media roughly 1/4 of the material
• Overall 70 of
• holdings have
• problems
• The Solution
• digitisation

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Obsolescence

• Videotape
• 2 1 U-Matic no playback equipment
• Film
• Disappearing in post production
• Audio formats
• Grams no playback equipment
• ¼ no longer accepted in BBC radio production and
  playout systems

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Deterioration

• Videotape decay of adhesive
• 2 1 U-Matic (30 read failures at BBC)
• Audio decay of adhesive
• ¼ tape (depends upon brand)
• Magnetic sound tracks
• Vinegar syndrome
• Other Acetate other sources of acetic acid
• Decay of film splices
• General decay of polymer materials

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Fragile Media

• Vinyl
• and shellac
• Film
• 10 plays per print (videotape 50)
• Video or audiotape can easily be physically
  damaged or affected be magnetic fields

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Size of the Problem in Europe

• Presto found 5 million hours 2001
• Mainly broadcast archives
• Prestospace found 10 million hours 2004
• Broadcast and large national collections
• TAPE found additional 20 million hours
• In collections not covered previously
• UNESCO estimate 200 million hours worldwide (100
  million in Europe)

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Where is the material?

• Broadcast archives 30 (roughly)
• National collections 15
• Other major collections 15
• Small and specialist collections 40
• NB all these figures refer to archived material
  ONLY

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The digitisation factory solution

• Efficient workflow
• Staff specialisation
• Triage

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Problems with the solution 1 Digitisation

• Youre not preserving anything youre only
  making more proxies and adding to the problem.
• Not accepted as a solution for film
• Not easy to implement for video (in full quality)
• But very much accepted for audio

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Problems with the solution 2 Factory approach

• Works on homogeneous collections
• Of good quality material and lots of it
• Which is well documented.
• Also requires excellent staff and facilities

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Problems with the solution 3 Digital Preservation

• Media
• Multiple copies
• Maintenance
• Migration

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Media

• Datatape is cheaper that hard drives
• But needs an expensive tape drive
• And has reliability issues
• Optical is cheapest of all
• But isnt really mass storage (DVD4.7 GB)
• New DVD format(s) promise 20 to 100 GB
• And has reliability issues
• Hard drives prices have dropped sharply
• Easiest to automate management
• And has reliability issues
• More information from PrestoSpace
• prestospace.eu (digitisation storage)

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Multiple copies

• Two copies
• Two technologies
• In two places
• But fastest recovery is by mirroring
• Which means identical technologies
• Big arguments about RAID vs simpler options vs
  more complex options

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Maintenance

• Life cycle management
• Should be every archives
• built-in process
• Begins with blank media
• Then the writing
• Then the initial checking
• Then the periodic checking and aerobics
• Ends with migration to the next format

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Migration

• A fact of life
• Every five years
• Can involve a lot of manual handling (of
  datatapes or optical media)
• Or can be nearly transparant (disc upgrades)
  but every three years!
• Needs lossless file formats

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Problems with the solution 4 Funding, equipment,
training

• TAPE Training for Audiovisual Preservation in
  Europe
• IASA TC04 Guidelines on the Production and
  Preservation of Digital Audio Objects
• ARSC
• PrestoSpace Guide to Audiovisual Preservation

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Problems with the solution 5 Rights

• Huge pressure for greater access
• Access is the key to funding (for cultural /
  heritage collections)
• Web technology solves the technical issues
• Rights limitations can be overcome
• Disclaimers due diligence escrow
• Creative Commons Public value Fair Use
  Educational and research use

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PrestoSpace Recommends

• Set up your own factory if you can
• OR use somebody elses
• PrestoSpace working with the facilities
  industry to convince them to give a high quality
  service at an affordable price

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How to get help

• PrestoSpace technology and support for
  audiovisual preservation information on the
  PrestoSpace websites, from TAPE training, and
  from the Preservation Guide wiki
• www.prestospace.eu
• prestospace-sam.ssl.co.uk
• www.knaw.nl/ecpa/tape/
• www.bbcarchive.org.uk