Audiovisual Mega-Preservation Status and Prospects of the Audiovisual Heritage

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Audiovisual Mega-PreservationStatus and
Prospects of the Audiovisual Heritage

• Richard Wright, Technology Manager,
• BBC Information Archives, London
• and JISC/NSF Spoken Word
• and JISC audiovisual digitisation
  initiatives
• JISC CNI Fifth International Conference
• Brighton 8-9 July 2004

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Summary

• Status of BBC Archives
• and European Broadcast Archives
• and even North American audio
• Saving audio and video the case for a
  Preservation Factory
• Film the only medium that will last
• but not in television
• Preservation and Access
• and Creative Commons and Creative Archive

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What are Broadcast Archives?

• Purpose
• Research material and footage for making NEW
  radio and television
• And internet and new media
• Content
• Audiovisual record of the 20th C
• 5 million hours in 10 Broadcast archives
• 50 to 100 million hours of audiovisual material
  across Europe

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Whats in the BBC Archives?

• 1.5 million items of film and videotape
• 750,000 radio recordings
• 3 million photographs
• 1.2 million commercial recordings
• 4 million items of sheet music
• 22 million newspaper cuttings
• 550,000 document files
• 20,000 rolls of microfilm
• 500,000 phonetic pronunciations

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Use of the Archive

• The BBC Archive is a key resource for public
  service and commercial exploitation
• 1 million issues per annum
• 600,000 enquiries per annum
• The Customers are mostly internal to the BBC
• Programme makers 70
• News 20
• Commercial Arm 6
• Others 4

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Preservation of the BBC Archive

• The BBC has made provision for a ten year
  preservation programme 2000-2010
• Budget provision of 90M - 100m
• Approved spend of 30M over 1st three years
• Approved spend of 22M over 2nd three years
• Method Transfer to the most economical and
  appropriate format

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BBC TV Holdings 1,500,000 items representing
600,000 hours of content
Standard Film 30
Ektachrome Reversal 12
D3 16
Digibeta 1
Betacam 11
2 Quad 1
1 C Format 12
VHS 14
Umatic 4.5
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TV Archive Work Completed

• 2 transfers completed November 1999
• 46,000 videotapes have been transferred to D3 and
  Digibeta (BBC digital formats) -- and VHS
• Project began in 1994
• Overall cost was 6.7 million
• 2 was 1st videotape fomat used by the BBC --
  from early 1960s to c.1980
• Programmes include Dr Who, Dads Army, Steptoe
  Son, Forsythe Saga, Fawlty Towers, Secret Army

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TV Archive Work in Progress (1)

• 1 transfers begun in 1999
• Over 80,000 videotapes identified for transfer
• Cost over the three years 6 million to transfer
  35,000 videotapes
• Transferred to D3, Digibeta, VHS and a digitised
  compressed browse version on CD Rom (MPEG-1)
• C Format used from late 1970s to early 1990s
• Programmes include Yes Minister, Eastenders,
  Angels, Wogan, All Our Working Lives

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TV Archive Work Completed

• The film soundtrack transfer began in 1998
• 88,000 soundtracks on acetate vulnerable to
  vinegar syndrome
• Estimated spend over three years 5.8 million to
  preserve 63,000 items
• Transferred to polyester-based stock and CD
• Acetate stock in use from the 1940s to the early
  1970s
• Programmes on this format include Man Alive,
  1984, Ascent of Man, British Empire, Omnibus

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TV Archive Work in Progress (2)

• Umatic (¾ inch cassette) transfer began 1999
• Over 60,000 Umatic cassettes identified for
  transfer
• Cost to preserve 30,000 cassettes over three
  years is 1.6 million
• The Umatics are transferred to DVCPRO (Digital
  videotape) and DVD-Rom (MPEG II, 20 MHz)
• Umatic used by BBC News between 1982 and the
  early 1990s
• News stories include Lockerbie, General Elections
  in 1983 1987, the Gulf War

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TV Archive Work in Progress (3)

• News colour film (Ektachrome reversal) 2001
• 72,000 items selected for preservation
• 43,000 transferred over 3 years cost of 1.8M
• Masters are cleaned, compiled into day reels and
  transferred to Digibeta, VHS and MPEG-1
• Used by BBC for News from 1967-1982.
• Stories include the Vietnam War, Yom Kippur war,
  all major domestic stories
• Also used for many current affairs programmes

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Radio Archive

• Radio holdings 750,000 recordings 300,000 hours
• Fewer technical problems with Radio more
  obsolescence

LP 78RPM Programme Extract,
1/4 tapes in regions
DAT
1/4 complete programmes
1/4 film unit tapes
1/4 tapes in London
CD Sound effects
CD compilation
Cassette
LP Sound effects
DAT
1/4 News
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Radio Archive Work Completed

• Transfer has begun on the rock/pop music sessions
• BBC recording from the 1960s to present. Most
  made for Radio One
• There are 40,000 tapes containing 14,000 hours of
  unique recordings
• Cost over two years to preserve all of this Radio
  One Archive is 2.6 million
• Transferred to audio CD and files on DVD-Rom
• Artists include Rolling Stones, Beatles, Who,
  Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Fall

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Radio Archive Work Completed

• Also transferred DAT and cassette material
• News sequences
• Transferred all 78 and LP BBC recordings
• Material from 20s to 60s
• Finishing transfer of LP sound effects
• Transferring from ¼ tape, for Radio 7 (classic
  spoken-word radio) 60k items/yr

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EC Project PRESTO

• GOAL reduce preservation cost 30
• 24 months, 10 partners, 4.8 M
• BBC, INA, RAI
• 7 technology partners
• Audio ACS
• Video EVOD, SW, Vectracom
• Film NTEC (also ITK)
• General Joanneum, ITC/IRST
• and SVT, ORF, SWR, NRK, YLE, NAA, TTR

Vectracom
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• State of European Broadcast Archives
• A 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

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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

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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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Cost / Effective Preservation

• Main issue the overall process
• Mass transfer assembly line
• Model RAI radio 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

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Preservation Funding

• In General - Broadcast Archives have NO standard
  funding for preservation
• Commercial basis (business case)
• solid for most broadcast archive material
• Commercial value of TV footage 100 500 per
  minute (or more)
• harder for both film and audio
• Heritage basis
• again, no standard funding

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Reducing cost per use

• Reduce cost
• Increase use
• So- access is vital, and not just for BBCs
  charter renewal.

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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.

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Access to the BBC archives

• Already a BBC charter obligation
• Reduces cost per use
• Opens a resource that has been funded by UK
  license-fee payers
• Creative Archive 2000 3-minute clips, this
  Autumn
• For download and re-use
• Under a Creative Commons licence

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Access to all European Audiovisual Heritage EC
ProjectPresto-Space

• Preservation Factories on a pay-as-you-use basis
• Small and medium collections can migrate at
  lowest cost at archive quality
• With new methods of access as the way to obtain
  funding for the whole process

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What it will deliver

• A full solution old material comes in, website
  and catalogue and new access technology come out
• A digital solution for film, beginning with 16mm
  black white
• A pay-as-you-use service at factory prices
• Based on working with professional media services
  in your local area

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Who is Presto-Space?

• INA, BBC, RAI, ORF, BG
• Joanneum Research and Sheffield University
• And about 30 more, mainly SMEs
• WHY US?
• There is a problem with all audiovisual media
• Broadcasters have demonstrated that we have a
  solution the preservation factory
• Presto-Space brings that solution to collections
  of all sizes

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Four Work Areas

• Digitisation

Restoration ( here)
Storage and Archive Management
(or here)
Metadata, Access and Delivery
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Thank you

• Presto-Space
• prestospace.org

Richard Wright richard.wright_at_bbc.co.uk