ftv-preservation - New York Universitybesser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Talks/16ftv-preservation.pdf · 2016-11-29 · -Film Preservation 1993: A Study of the Current State of American Film

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Will Your Production Last?��Problems in Moving Image

Preservation

Howard Besser, Director Moving Image Archiving & Preservation Program

NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation


Will Your Production Last?- •  Why moving image preservation is important •  Understanding why film & video become unplayable:

Problems with Analog Preservation •  General Digital Preservation Issues

–  File format issues –  Accidental erasure –  Distribution platforms –  The Cloud –  Libraries, Archives, Repositories –  Personal Digital Archiving


Moving Images are critical to understanding our cultural heritage •  Both fiction & documentaries shape any time period’s views of the

past (Moses & 10 Commandments; Cleopatra; Caesar’s Rome; 1940s urban US; Hitler, Holocaust, WWII; Vietnam War, …)

•  We are shaped by the cultural icons of our childhood (Leave it to Beaver, Lassie, James Bond, police shows, Mickey Mouse, Road Runner, …)

•  We are also shaped by the advertisements, industrial, and educational films of our childhood (Maytag repairman, How to be a good homemaker, …)

•  To understand our time period, people in the future will need to have access to the cultural artifacts of our time (imagine trying to understand 1950s and 1960s gender dynamics without pop cultural views of the family)


What’s challenging about Moving Image Collections?

•  You can’t browse a collection •  Many different purposes (documenting events,

telling stories) •  “Published” works have variant forms (think of all

the versions of Blade Runner!) •  Many physical formats (film gages, video sizes

and encoding, digital encoding and compressions), and all of them become obsolete relatively quickly


Lots of Formats; Hard to Store (VidiPax)


Moving Images are highly unstable, and an enormous # have already disappeared

•  50% of all titles produced before 1950 have vanished (approximate number as of late 1970s)

•  This reflects full-length features; survival rates are much lower for other types (studio newsreels, shorts, docs, independent, …), and these “orphans” are particularly in peril

•  Fewer than 20% of features from 1920s survive in complete form; survival rates of 1910s is <10% (& none of these are negatives)

-Film Preservation 1993: A Study of the Current State of American Film Preservation, Vol 1: Report, June 1993, Report of the Librarian of

Congress (http://www.loc.gov/film/study.html)

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DETERIORATION & DESTRUCTION

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Film Decay (LC Dayton)


Academy--decay


Some reasons why Moving Images are disappearing

•  Most pre-sound films weren’t saved at all •  Nitrates hazard •  Eastmancolor fading •  Video--changing formats, magnetic

particles not adhering to backing, little recognition of importance of saving

•  Who should be responsible for saving works without lucrative financial value


Color Restore (VidiPax)

HURRICANES

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New Orleans:��

Film Projector


New Orleans Films projected��Helen Hill films





Eyebeam Disaster Recovery (Sandy 2012)

Besser-Stuttgart, 17/12/2012 Besser-Stuttgart, 24/11/2016 17

Eyebeam Disaster Recovery

Besser-Stuttgart, 17/12/2012 Besser-Stuttgart, 24/11/2016 18

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NATURAL DETERIORATION


Technical Composition & Deterioration

•  We know a lot about deterioration and maintenance of formats that have existed for a while; we need to understand the chemistry, physics, and electronics in order to preserve these – Film- – Video and Audio Tapes-


Film Layers ��ScreenSound Film Preservation Handbook

•  Topcoat •  Emulsion (content) •  Subbing Layer (adhere)

•  Base (cellulose triacetate, cellulose diacetate, cellulose nitrate, or polyester)

•  Backing Layer


Surface Physical Damage

•  Perforation •  Scratches

•  Water droplet damage to emulsion

•  ScreenSound Film Preservation Handbook


Mold Damage��ScreenSound Film Preservation Handbook

•  Usually in gelatin part of emulsion layer

•  Interesting patterns


Shrinkage��ScreenSound Film Preservation Handbook

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Vinegar Syndrome Deterioration��Image Permanance Institute


Signs of Vinegar Syndrome

•  sour smell •  Shrinkage •  buckling of the emulsion •  the appearance of crystals that obscure the image


Film--Acetate Decomposition�� cupping--Home Film Preservation Guide--filmforever.org


Film--Acetate Decomposition��emulsion cracks--Home Film Preservation Guide--filmforever.org


IPI A-D Strips


Acid Detection Strips at NYU Library (Internship)

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Structure of Tape��Van Bogart http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54

•  Binder--Functions as a carrier for the recording material & Bonds it to the substrate •  Substrate--Base material on which the recording material is coated (eg. an aluminum

platter or a thin ribbon of polyester film)


Tape Substrate •  Early tape used cellulose acetate

– Moisture/hydrolysis – Vinegar syndrome

•  More recent tapes are polyester terephthalate (PET) or polyethylene napthalate (PEN) – Chemically stable – Resist hydrolysis and oxidation


Video Cleaning Machine


Longitudinal Recording��Van Bogart http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54

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Helical Scan Recording��Van Bogart http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54

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Tape Pack Problems ��Van Bogart http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54

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Tape Pack Problems


Packing problems can lead to playback problems

•  Tracks for helical scan can be skewed


Storing Tapes

•  Tapes should be stored fully wound in one direction or the other

•  Store tapes upright (like a book) •  Do not store near potential magnetic fields •  Storage cases should be opaque and kept

away from source of light and humidity •  Do not store tapes in plastic bags •  Exercise the tape every few years


Temperature & Humidity for Tape Storage

•  Variance of less than 2ºC and 5% RH per 24 hours

•  Ideally 8ºC and 25% RH •  Other options

–  20°C (68°F) and 20-30% RH –  15°C (59°F) and 20-40% RH –  10°C (50°F) and 20-50% RH

•  Never store below 8ºC

amianet.org 2003, & ISO 18923

FILE FORMAT ISSUES


We’re always reformatting, and dealing with wide variety of

formats •  Nitrate •  Super8 •  Cinemascope •  3-D •  Cartridge •  …

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Old Film Formats


Various Formats Intermixed (Hampton)


Old Video/Digital Formats (www.vidipax.com)


Old Video Formats


Old Digital Formats


Masters are different from distribution copies

•  In the film world, negative masters were low contrast and fine-grained. Often much higher resolution than distribution copies

•  In today’s digital world, copies distributed on Internet are much lower quality than the Master

•  In the full digital world of the future, Masters will continue to have higher quality and more metadata than distribution copies

•  Distribution copies can be compressed and encrypted; Masters should not be

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Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI)��http://www.dcimovies.com/

•  created in March 2002 •  joint venture of Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony

Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros. Studios •  “DCI's primary purpose is to establish and document

voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control. DCI will also facilitate the development of business plans and strategies to help spur deployment of digital cinema systems in movie theaters.”

•  Only about distribution, not about capture or Masters


Digital Cinema

2K 4K NTSC


Digital Cinema

•  Delay in adoption over who will pay (studios or theater owners)

•  Quality Issues –  2K (2048 X 1080) vs 4K (4096 X 2160) –  2K captures roughly the quality of 35mm

release print (but not negative) –  but when Blu-Ray or HD-DVD give people 2K

in their homes, will theaters need higher quality to attract people there?

DCP isn’t a preservation format

•  DCDM •  DPX



What about newer formats & developments?

•  Moving images on DVDs becoming interactive; need for more extensive source materials

•  Video installation works •  Net-based works incorporating moving images •  Images & rich media; new media and multi-media

works DIGITAL PRESERVATION


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Serious Longevity Problems

 What we know from prior widespread digital file formats

 Previous formats required little ongoing intervention (remote storage facilities, Iron Mtn); digital formats require intense ongoing management

 The Short Life of Digital Info-


The Short Life of Digital Info: Digital Longevity Problems

 Disappearing Information  The Viewing Problem  The Scrambling Problem  The Inter-relation Problem  The Custodial Problem  The Translation Problem


The Viewing Problem

 Digital Info requires a whole infrastructure to view it

 Each piece of that infrastructure is changing at an incredibly rapid rate

 How can we ever hope to deal with all the permutations and combinations


The Scrambling Problem��

Dangers from:  Compression to ease storage & delivery  Encryption to enhance digital commerce


Paradigm Shift

•  From managing artifacts to managing disembodied information over time

•  Preservation Repository with strong devotion to management over time including – Periodic refreshing – Either emulation or migration (or some other

strategy that may emerge

CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AS PRESERVATION REPOSITORIES


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Cultural Institutions

•  Are best equipped for managing moving image material over long periods of time

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Preservation Repositories:��Open Archival Info System Model

Producer!

Management!

Consumer!


OCLC/RLG ��Digital Repository Attributes

•  Administrative responsibility •  Organizational viability •  Financial sustainability •  Technological suitability •  System security •  Procedural accountability


Hampton Collection (3)


Hampton Collection (interviews)


Hampton Collection (exhibits)

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Hampton Collection (negatives)

Besser-MIAP Intro, 9/7/2010 1

Cinemateca Brasileira (film storage)


Hampton Collection (atmosphere cntrl)


Academy-Atmosphere

ACCIDENTAL ERASURE OF DIGITAL


Digital Disasters-Toy Story��https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dhp_20j0Ys ��

http://thenextweb.com/media/2012/05/21/how-pixars-toy-story-2-was-deleted-twice-once-by-technology-and-again-for-its-own-good/


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Oakland Police delete 25% of Videos


•  “A quarter of all video clips captured by Oakland police body-worn cameras during stops and investigations were accidentally deleted nearly two years ago when city employees installed a software upgrade.”

•  “Nothing should have ever been lost from the system,” Burke said in court, later adding, “The settings were set to never delete.”

•  Instead of hitting “preserve everything,” the IT employees mistakenly checked a box marked “preserve,”

Digital Disasters-Personal

•  "Results show 40 percent of desktop owners and 31 percent of laptop owners have experienced data loss, most often because their device crashed.”

-Western Digital Survey -Miami Herald, 1/9/2013


PROBLEMS WITH COMMERCIAL SERVICES


Study of metadata loss through uploading to services ��


Woz hates The Cloud (1/2) ��http://gizmodo.com/5932161/why-the-cloud-sucks


Woz hates The Cloud (2/2) ��http://gizmodo.com/5932161/why-the-cloud-sucks


•  I've had too many personal experiences get messed up just because companies change things on the cloud. I've come to a depressed state of feeling that I own nothing on the cloud and have no ability to keep things working the way they do. Features change and get dropped, things you depend on disappear, etc.

•  Not long after upgrading to Mountain Lion, one of my three primary Google calendars disappeared. It no longer existed. I have multiple Google calendars and some people have read ability while others can create events but I have the sole admin account that could have deleted a calendar. I would never do this, and checked to make sure it's not easy. In fact, a dialog appears telling you to ok that you will lose all your events. I would never do this.

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Cloud Storage not safe from Snooping


PERSONAL DIGITAL ARCHIVING FIELD & CONFERENCES


PDA Covers born-digital •  Correspondence/email •  Personal photos and group photo albums •  Manuscript drafts •  Personal documents •  Home movies And has been extended to encompass: •  Family history •  Community/Ethnic history & Movements •  Genealogy •  Digital humanities.


PDA History Initially started by Internet Archive with co-sponsorship from Netherlands Sound & Vision, LC/NDIIPP and CNI •  2010 Internet Archive •  2011 Internet Archive •  2012 Internet Archive •  2013 Univ of Maryland •  2014 Indiana State Library •  2015 New York University •  2016 Univ of Michigan •  2017 Stanford


Personal Digital Archiving 2015��http://personaldigitalarchiving.com/


PDA 2015��http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2015/08/report-on-the-personal-digital-

archiving-2015-conference/


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Video Preservation

•  Paul Dougherty, “40 Years of Video Husbandry” (PDF)

•  Zack Lischer-Katz, “Reflections on Digitizing a Personal Audiovisual Collection” (PDA)

•  Rebecca Fraimow, “Digital Video Remix: A Risk Assessment.” (PDF)


Workshop on Do-It-Yourself Personal Digital Archiving


Workshop on Do-It-Yourself Personal Digital Archiving


Workshop on Email Archiving


Last Summer’s Tisch class


2017 Summer Session 1 class ��Tu, Th 6-9PM, May 23-Jun 30


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Save Your Stuff: DIY Media Archiving��2017 Summer Session 1 class, CINE-GT/UT 1809


•  In a world where individuals are constantly generating digital content for personal and professional use, learning how to organize and save this material is essential for ensuring its long-term accessibility. This introductory course will impart practical skills from the world of archiving to help students take control of the media they store at home, in the studio, or online. Students will learn to identify file formats, assess a digital collection, and plan for the ongoing care of their media. Designed for anyone who wants to save their digital content, this course is especially well-suited for students, scholars, artists, filmmakers, musicians, activists, bloggers, and journalists. Emphasis will be placed on preserving audiovisual and photographic materials, with additional consideration of documents and social media.

Personal Digital Archiving links

•  http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2015/08/report-on-the-personal-digital-archiving-2015-conference/

•  http://personaldigitalarchiving.com/ •  http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Talks/



What can you do now?��For Film, Video & Digital

•  Label elements as well as you can •  Limit the number of formats as much as possible, and avoid lossy

compression if you can •  Make logical divisions for your digital folders, and include a ReadMe

file in each, indicating what kinds of elements are in that folder •  Save important production elements •  Be sure to indicate which is your final edit •  Make back-up copies on another device (and preferably in another

location) •  Try to keep things at a low humidity and temperature •  Consider depositing copies in a cultural institution (at least when you

win an award or become famous) and give that institution Rights that will allow them to continuously reformat to keep the work alive-


Be concerned about © •  For preservation a cultural institution may need to re-

format, but with recent changes in copyright laws, they may not have the right to re-format

•  Intellectual property rights are very difficult, particularly considering that most films and videos have extensive underlying rights that the cultural institution could never get prior permission for (stock footage, historical footage, music composition, music performance, …) [“Eyes on the Prize”]

•  And even if the cultural institution has the right to re-format for preservation, they might not have the right to show what they have preserved

Crea%ve Commons Guidance •  Crea%ve Commons lets you mix-‐and-‐match four different

condi%ons: –  A=ribu%on: You let others copy, re-‐use and distribute your video, but they

must credit you. –  Share-‐Alike: You let others copy, re-‐use and distribute your video, only if they

do the same with the work they create. –  Non-‐Commercial: You let others copy, re-‐use and distribute your video for

non-‐commercial purposes only. –  No Deriva%ve Works: You let others copy and distribute your video, but not to

create new works using it. •  You can use these condi%ons in different combina%ons to share your work

in a controlled way. Crea%ve Commons licenses are legal tools that depend on pre-‐exis%ng copyright laws. Having a Crea%ve Commons license on your work may give you legal recourse, but it may not actually prevent people from downloading and re-‐using your video illegally.


Marking Crea%ve Commons licenses

•  There are a few ways to mark your video with a Crea%ve Commons license. One way is to include a Crea%ve Commons “bumper” or text card in your video. Crea%ve Commons has created some with graphics that you can download from their website. This method is useful if your video is going to be shared offline (e.g. on DVD, live screenings), as the license informa%on is a=ached to the video itself.

•  Another way to mark your video with a Crea%ve Commons license is to publish your video on plaRorms that are Crea%ve Commons-‐enabled, such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Internet Archive. These plaRorms allow you to easily select a license during the upload process. This method is useful because the license is machine-‐readable. A search engine, for example, can detect the license.


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Will Your Production Last?��Problems in Moving Image Preservation��

Howard Besser��NYU Moving Image Archiving & Preservation Program��

http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation •  http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Talks/

•  http://www.amianet.org/ •  http://www.dcimovies.com/


Documents

ftv-preservation - New York Universitybesser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Talks/16ftv-preservation.pdf · 2016-11-29 · -Film Preservation 1993: A Study of the Current State of American Film