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Preserving the Value of Broadcast Archives
EC Project PRESTO: Preservation Technology
(for broadcast archives)
Prepared for the DG- INFSO
IFLA 2003 -- Berlin
“You can’t re-use what you didn’t keep”
• Content and Value of Broadcast Archives• Preservation:
– Status
– Project Technology & Costs
– & Access: costs & benefits
– & Restoration
• EC Project PRESTO• Technology (just a bit)• Preservation and creation of assets you can re-use
GOAL: reduce preservation cost 30%
• 24 months, 10 partners, 4.8 M€
• BBC, INA, RAI• 7 technology partners
Audio: ACSVideo: EVOD, S&W, VectracomFilm: NTEC (also ITK)General: Joanneum, ITC/IRST
• and SVT, ORF, SWR, NRK, YLE, NAA, TTRVectracom
EC Project PRESTO
Holdings:The survey of ten major archives found about
– 1 million hours of film– 1.6 million hours of video recordings– 2 million hours of audio recordings
Total European holdings of broadcast material are AT LEAST ten times larger:– 10 million hours of film– 20 million hours of video– 20 million hours of audio
72%
20%
0%
1%3%
4%0%
Shellac & Vinyl
1/4" tapes
Casettes
DAT
CD
Minidisc
Tandberg QIC cartridges
Archive Audio Holdings
10%
7%
21%
15%
23%
11%
13%0%
35 mm negative
16 mm negative
16 mm reversal (all)
35 mm print
16 mm print
35 mm SEPMAG
16 mm SEPMAG
Intermediates(Interpos/neg, CRI)
Archive Film Holdings
16%
16%
6%
32%
11%
2%
5%
7% 3%1% 1%
2" tape
1" tape
3/4" UMATIC
M2
BETACAM
VHS
D2
D3
Digital BETACAM
D5
CD-ROM
Archive Videotape Holdings
Value of the Content• Unique cultural and historical record of the 20th
Century (paid for by licence fees)• BBC: Sound archive: 1922 onward; Churchill; TS
Eliot; Abdication speech, Radio One “Sessions” …
• Film: news before 1980; major drama; Man Alive, 1984, Ascent of Man, British Empire, Omnibus …
• 2”: Dr Who, Dad’s Army, Steptoe & Son, Forsythe Saga, Fawlty Towers, Secret Army …
• 1”: Yes Minister, Eastenders, Angels, Wogan, All Our Working Lives …
• U-matic: News 1982-1990’s: Lockerbie, General Elections in 1983 & 1987, the Gulf War …
• Commercial value: 100 – 500 € per minute (or more)
Preservation Status:
• Obsolescence: At least 2/3 of the material in
archives cannot easily be used in its existing form
• Deterioration: Approximately 1/3 of the material
has one form or another of deterioration
• Fragile media: Roughly ¼ of the material cannot
be released for access because the media are too
easily damaged
Obsolescence
• Videotape– 2”; 1”; U-Matic: no playback equipment
• Film– Disappearing in post production
• Audio formats– Grams : no playback equipment– ¼” ?
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
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
Average
cost / h
2" PAL
2" B/W
2" SECAM
2" other Standard
1" B PAL
1" C PAL
1" B SECAM
1" C SECAM
1" other standard
3/4" Umatic LB PAL
3/4" Umatic H PAL
3/4" Umatic SP PAL
3/4" Umatic LB SECAM
3/4" Umatic H SECAM
1/2" BETACAM
BETACAM SP
1/2" MII 230
VHS 100
VIDEO
176
357
344
230
Actual Transfer Costs
In Euros
Per hour of material
(averaged over lots of holes)
1 item = 20 minutes
Averagecost / h
Wax cylinders
Shellac
78 RPM vinyl
LP vinyl
45 RPM vinyl
1/4" tapes 238DAT 195
Minidisc
CD 70CassettesOther
AUDIO
299
Average
cost / h
35 mm negative 1,994
16 mm negative 1,68516 mm reversal (all) 3,011
16 mm reversal (tape joins) 2,850
35 mm print 1,900
16 mm print 1,875
35 mm SEPMAG 2,415
16 mm SEPMAG 373
FILM
Preservation work
• Total film preservation hours per year:– 8 000 plus 10 000 sepmag
• Total Video preservation hours per year:– 36 000
• Total Audio preservation hours per year:– 20 000 from BBC, INA, NAA, ORF plus 25 000 at RAI
• Total Intake of new material per year:– 4 000 hours of film– 170 000 hours of video = 4x rate of preservation– 80 000 hours of audio = 4x rate of preservation
Preservation work- not keeping up!
• Total film preservation hours per year:– 8 000 plus 10 000 sepmag
• Total Video preservation hours per year:– 36 000
• Total Audio preservation hours per year:– 20 000 from BBC, INA, NAA, ORF plus 25 000 at RAI
• Total Intake of new material per year:– 4 000 hours of film– 170 000 hours of video = 4x rate of preservation– 80 000 hours of audio = 4x rate of preservation
Preservation Funding
• In General - Broadcast Archives have NO standard funding for preservation
• Commercial basis (business case):– solid for most broadcast archive material– harder for both film and audio
• Heritage basis:– again, no standard funding
Cost / Effective Preservation
Main issue – the overall process
• Mass transfer – assembly line
• Model: RAI: 200k hours in 2.5 yrs
• ‘on-demand’ preservation can seem free, but true cost is approx 3x GREATER than cost using an efficient mass transfer process
• Key factors: quality, metadata
Making the Savings
• Purpose-built preservation areas to optimise equipment and streamline movement of material
• Dedicated ‘preservation’ facilities– In-house or commercial
• Links to the wider business process programme documentation subtitle information rights clearance creation of new metadata to improve catalogue extraction of key frames automatic speech recognition
Cost per use:
• total lifecycle cost – True cost of an asset is total lifecycle cost.– True benefit is related to the number of times
that asset is used over the lifecycle.
Archive preservation strategy:• “lowest cost per use” over the life cycle of
the new media,• NOT the lowest transfer cost.
Access: examples
• Video on servers at SVT:– in operation for less than a year– Probably 2 to 3 times greater usage
• BBC – examples for preservation work– 2” to digibeta – at least 3x greater usage– Similarly for news film onto videotape
• BBC News 24 online archive pilot:– 600 items online: 5 “to air” per day– 120000 items offline: 30 “to air” per day
Formats, Access, Usage: ORFVIDEO Cans/items % Issues Issues/holdings
total videotape 812500 100.0Holdings
2inch 22000 2.7
1inch 113000 13.9 7% 0.25¾”Umatic 70000 8.6BETACAM SP 37000 4.6
½ inch MII 355000 43.7 65% 1.5VHS 143000 17.6 12%
Digital BETACAM 72500 8.9 16% 1.8
VIDEO Cans/items % Issues Issues/holdings
total videotape 812500 100.0Holdings
2inch 22000 2.7
1inch 113000 13.9 7% 0.25¾”Umatic 70000 8.6BETACAM SP 37000 4.6
½ inch MII 355000 43.7 65% 1.5VHS 143000 17.6 12%
Digital BETACAM 72500 8.9 16% 1.8
BBC Radio One ‘sessions’
• Popular music recorded at BBC over 30 year period
• No accessible catalogue; no backup; no circulation
• => NO USAGE• Preservation project fixed all these issues• => launch of new radio channel (Radio 6)
based mainly on this material
Two aspects of Assets and Preservation
• Even Managed Assets need preservation– Too easy to forget about the long-term future of
your assets
• Preservation Projects offer archives their main chance to introduce asset management– Several billion Euros will be spent on broadcast
archive preservation in the next decade (€100M by the BBC!)
The Opportunity:
re-write the archive• Transform technology
• Create ASSETS from holdings
• Improved access:– Use new technology for current
services– create new services
Transform technology
• Reduce cost– Storage– Maintenance– Workflow
• End-User research• Electronic delivery
Create ASSETS from holdings
• Catalogue– Complete– Detailed– Synchronised
• Rights– Owners– Uses– Digital Rights Management
Improve current services
• At the user’s desktop– Catalogue– Browse– Edit / annotate / select– Order master material– Receive master material
Create new services
• External access– Commercial– Public service
Technical requirements
• Multi-level digitisation– Edit, Browse, Web
• Segmentation– Key frames– Speech / music / effect / speaker
• Supporting content-based retrieval (CBR);– Speech recognition– MPEG-7
• Digitisation of ‘related materials’• Linking media to related materials
What we don’t do as part of preservation
• Restoration– But- define what needs restoration
• Rights clearance– But- get the documentation together, and coded
into ‘rights taxonomy’ of owners, users, uses
• Pay the full bill– Archive is at centre of whole digital workflow– All interested parties share costs and benefits
Problems with funding for improved access:
• cost-benefit evaluations of future requirements
• business case for transforming archive technology
Requires managerial vision: a commitment to “tapeless working” in broadcasting
In conclusion
Preservation transfer process:
• A chance to do all the technical work to support the archive of the future
• Including greater commercial exploitation
