Agreed IF the items are intact and are catalogued. The rubrick infers that this isn't the case of a significantly high proportion of the proposed material. In addition if this is to be THE archive of record, then the whole archiving process will need to be supervised more or less continually.
Trying to work out if that's a dream job or a living nightmare.
One thing, when these things are digitised as a file, I imagine it makes them a lot easier to keep for the future, as transferring files from one place to another, making additional copies and transcoding to other formats is a lot easier than getting something off a tape. Certainly after I digitised everything of mine, making copies for other people (especially old home videos for family members) or uploading online is a breeze compared to running a copy from a VHS or 8mm tape. Easy to make several copies too to help prevent against loss too (I have my stuff backed up on 4 different hard drives, rather than just on tape on a shelf), and obviously no generational loss between copies as long as you don't transcode.
One thing, when these things are digitised as a file, I imagine it makes them a lot easier to keep for the future, as transferring files from one place to another, making additional copies and transcoding to other formats is a lot easier than getting something off a tape. Certainly after I digitised everything of mine, making copies for other people (especially old home videos for family members) or uploading online is a breeze compared to running a copy from a VHS or 8mm tape. Easy to make several copies too to help prevent against loss too (I have my stuff backed up on 4 different hard drives, rather than just on tape on a shelf), and obviously no generational loss between copies as long as you don't transcode.
That last point is an issue when acquiring archive material in terms of what format do you digitise them in? Changes in technology mean that one could digitise them in x format today but in a years time a much better suited one could come out. Or worse still use format y and find its obsolete in 10 years
The BBC have been digitising their D3 archive in a clever way. It's a digital format that stored composite video. Once something is composite it's impossible to get it back into its seperate components cleanly so any transfer into a video format won't be ideal. So what they're doing instead is they're archiving the raw data from the tape. This means that should someone come up with a better solution for dealing with composite video they can go back to the D3 master even though it doesn't physically exist
These BFI tapes will be mostly analogue so don't have that option of course, I wonder what digital video format they will use?
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 30 November 2016 7:32am
One thing, when these things are digitised as a file, I imagine it makes them a lot easier to keep for the future, as transferring files from one place to another, making additional copies and transcoding to other formats is a lot easier than getting something off a tape. Certainly after I digitised everything of mine, making copies for other people (especially old home videos for family members) or uploading online is a breeze compared to running a copy from a VHS or 8mm tape. Easy to make several copies too to help prevent against loss too (I have my stuff backed up on 4 different hard drives, rather than just on tape on a shelf), and obviously no generational loss between copies as long as you don't transcode.
That last point is an issue when acquiring archive material in terms of what format do you digitise them in? Changes in technology mean that one could digitise them in x format today but in a years time a much better suited one could come out. Or worse still use format y and find its obsolete in 10 years
The BBC have been digitising their D3 archive in a clever way. It's a digital format that stored composite video. Once something is composite it's impossible to get it back into its seperate components cleanly so any transfer into a video format won't be ideal. So what they're doing instead is they're archiving the raw data from the tape. This means that should someone come up with a better solution for dealing with composite video they can go back to the D3 master even though it doesn't physically exist
These BFI tapes will be mostly analogue so don't have that option of course, I wonder what digital video format they will use?
LWT did the same thing years ago using D2 for the same reasons. The only problem now is serviceable machines.
I wonder if they will be hiring people to help with the job? I had the pleasure of digitising masters of Question Time, Panorama and Newsnight for the BBC Archives recently. These ranged from the 70's, 80's, 90's and early 00's all from digital Betacam.
LWT did the same thing years ago using D2 for the same reasons. The only problem now is serviceable machines.
That's the big problem with anything that's not part of the Sony Beta family of formats. You can play a 1980s Beta SP in a modern HDCAM machine, there's not an equivalent for D2 or D3 despite D2 being Sony
But then D2 and D3 pre-date DigiBeta so I suppose it's the old issue of being an early adopter.
I assume the Thames archive is or has been digitised going by the clips appearing on their official YouTube channels. They used MII which is even more obscure a format
I can't quite get the gist of the article.
Does it mean that the BFI are digitising private collections, non-itv/bbc, that are still analogue such as Kaleidoscope and TV-am? Or are the 2 inch collections at bbc/itv still not complete?
Last edited by IndigoTucker on 30 November 2016 9:52am
I can't quite get the gist of the article.
Does it mean that the BFI are digitising private collections, non-itv/bbc, that are still analogue such as Kaleidoscope and TV-am? Or are the 2 inch collections at bbc/itv still not complete?
IIRC the BFI gets donated things that the BBC and/or ITV (and maybe indies as well) either don't want or plan to get rid of or wipe.
Kaleidoscope, according to their website, pretty much outsource their archiving and transfer to a company called Tim Disney Archive.
TV-AM's programming was sold to Moving Images who later licenced it to the Associated Press.
:-(
A former member
Does bfi have links to the local archives? Dare we ask about you know what.
Alot of the older stuff isnt with bfi, in Scotland theres a lot of old stuff has been sent to Edinburgh and some clips are on line.
Last edited by A former member on 30 November 2016 12:16pm