Digitisation: Best Practice and Standards

Sexto Seminario Internacional de Archivos Sonoros y AudiovisualesMIÉRCOLES 25 DE JUNIO DE 2014

MESA 5: La digitalización de los acervosRichard Wright

Best Practice? Examples

• Columbia University Library:

http://library.columbia.edu/services/preservation/audio.html

“Audiotapes are preserved by re-recording original recordings onto reel-to-reel tape, following nationally recognized preservation practices and guidelines; “

Columbia Univ. Library

• “Analog copies, carefully made and properly stored, are considered nationally to be the best medium for long-term preservation of sound recordings.”

• “...into the future, when digital technology has progressed to new levels of accuracy, we will still have the option to create new digital versions from the full continuum of sound.”

Columbia Univ. Library

• “It is clear that digital copies are the better option for access and use. CDs suffer much less from wear and tear during use than do reel-to-reel or cassette tapes.”

• ... “Finally, high-quality CD-Rs are a stable medium with a good life expectancy.”

BBC Archive

• 1997: vinegar syndrome in acetate magnetic sound tracks (sepmags)

• Took decision to digitise to CD (with pulses to mark sprocket holes)

• AND – to make new polyester analogue copies

• By 2001 – use of film viewing declined almost to zero; polyester copies almost never used!

British Library Sound Archive

• 1980s- off-air recording of radio broadcasts

• Decided to ‘go digital’ – very few options (before CD-R, in the days of 5 MB hard drives)

• Chose Sony PCM-F1 (betamax videotape)

• 15 years later- a struggle to migrate off this format

British Film Institute

• Oral history recordings, mainly on cassette

• Copyied to BetaSP videotape (using only theaudio tracks) – because they had BetaSP !

BBC Archive

• Spent ten years copying analogue video tape to Panasonic D3 format

• Because D3 was the agreed production format in the BBC

• After 2004, D3 obsolete; tapes had to be migrated (to files on LTO data tape)

• Problems finding enough equipment and “head life”

INA (Paris)

• Late 1990’s: early adopter of datatape (before LTO)

• Early adopter of Sony Petasite tape library and SAIT helical-scan datatape

• Many problems, ended up migrating to a different technology

• Eventually migrating again to LTO

MANY archives are on their 2nd or 3rd tape library technology

Photographical Collections

• Early 1990s, many professional users of Kodak Photo-CD, Picture CD formats

“Keep your memories safe for generations. Preserving your favorite pictures is easy with a KODAK Picture CD.” http://wwwuk.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/kiosk/kioskProducts.jhtml?pq-path=2301249#tab=tab11

Proprietary encoding and storage formats on Photo-CD; all have had to be migrated

Magneto-Optical Media

• Plasmon – UDO discs guaranteed for 50 years

• Drives were promised that would continue to read the discs

• Company folded 2008, with 6000 customers

• But – assets bought by Alliance Storage Technologies, Inc. in 2009

• My conclusion: money was lost, but data was not !

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)

• 2007: “digital 12 times more expensive thanfilm”

• Quoted in NY Times – and just abouteverywhere

• “the report’s startling bottom line: To store a digital master record of a movie costs about $12,514 a year, versus the $1,059 it costs to keep a conventional film master.”

AMPAS

AMPAS estimation of digital costs for a century:

1) Find cost in 2005/6

2) Multiply by 100

AMPAS: $500 per terabyte per year for near-line data tape storage

2014 cost for Amazon Glacier: $120/TB/yr (and dropping)

Who can you trust?

• IASA, AMIA, ARSC

• Library of Congress

• PrestoCentre

Best Practice: Audio

Best Practice: Video (SD)

Best Practice: Video (HD)

Best Practice: Video (SD)

Best Practice: Film