Putting in the Sprocket Holes: Preservation Strategies for Moving Image Archives

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Putting in the Sprocket Holes Preservation
Strategies for Moving Image Archives Cheri
Rauser MA MLIS
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What is the toughest thing about making a film?
Putting in the little holes. The sprocket holes
are the hardest thing to make. Everything else
is easy, but all night you have to sit with that
little puncher and make the holes on the side of
the film. You could faint from that work. the
rest is easy the script is easy, the acting is
easy, the directing is a breeze... but the
sprockets will tear your heart out. --- Mel
Brooks, comedian, writer, film director
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The Archival Lifecycle of a Moving Image Asset
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-a moving image is many things a form of
entertainment, an art form, an historical record,
a cultural artefact, a commodity and a force for
social change- Moving Image Collections A
Window to the Worlds Moving Images http//mic.imt
c.gatech.edu/
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-images that cannot be accessed, read, or
delivered in 5 to 10 years time are
worthless Jessica Bushey, Head of
Digital Imaging, UBC Museum of Anthropology
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DAS 2007 Digital Asset Symposium Association of
Moving Image ArchivistsThe Lifecycle of a
Digital Asset

• NBCUniversal/Universal Studios - film sound
  element preservation workflow Tom Regal,
  Director, Audio Restoration and Preservation
  Jeff Taylor, Chief Engineer, Post Production
  Sound
• Warner Brothers -1 2 tape digitization
  project - to an archival standard Steven
  Anastasi VP of Inventory and Preservation
• The Walt Disney Company interoperability through
  shared metadata and descriptive standards for all
  business files 300 business units. Madi
  Solomon, Business Nomenclature Taxonomy Analyst
• National Geographic TV moving from text-based
  asset management system to digital asset
  management system. Philip Spiegel, Director,
  Archives and Cataloguing
• The ResearchChannel, University of Washington
  advance streaming and broadband to deliver VOD
  goal is to broad-cast on an integrated DAM
  digitize, store, broadcast for clients (open
  source). Nate McQueen, Media Systems Architect
• Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and
  Moving Images - ingest 700,000 hours per year/6
  million hours in collection consolidation of
  100 databases into 5 databases over past 7 years.
  Martin Jacobson, Head of Technology and
  Development
• Sony Pictures Entertainment - digital data
  management from creation to post-production
  distribution of film assets on DVD Tony Beswick,
  Sr. Vice President Technical Operations, Sony
  Pictures Entertainment Worldwide Fulfillment
  Group

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Format Shelf Life Expectancies

• Nitrate Film (pre-1895) 100 years volatile
  and flammable and strangely stable
• Safety Triacetate (c 1895-1951) 55 years
  audio problems-vinegar syndrome
• Video 1 /Umatic ¾/Beta ½ (1982) - 40 years-
  stable and reliable -
• Polyester film elements 25 years stable and
  reliable - for motion picture prints not camera
  footage
• DAT -15 years / DA88 10 years- digital audio
  (audio less stable than video)
• Data tape 7 years (e.g.. XDCam, Blu-ray)
• Spinning Disk 3 years cd/dvd
• Warner Bros-Steve Anastasi VP of Inventory and
  Preservation

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Multiple Formats Loss of Access

• Use of production formats as an archival standard
  leads to limited access and the potential for
  permanent data loss.
• Collections comprised of multiple production
  formats ¾ , ½ 1 tape, spinning disks, data
  tape disks but no archival standard are likely
  to become inaccessible or wind up discarded due
  to lack of archival planning
• Collection becomes inaccessible for production
  purposes and is therefore seen as having negative
  ROI and not worth keeping
• Carries the high cost of technological
  obsolescence - maintaining technology,
  administering migration of data and replicating
  existing data for production use (reshooting)

Warner Bros-Steve Anastasi VP of Inventory
and Preservation
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• Migration
• must focus on maintaining the technology which
  houses the data rather than better managing the
  data for access
• must provide access to multiple increasingly
  redundant or unstable formats
• risk damaging data integrity with each transfer
• time spent discarding materials under default
  archival management policy that first archives
  everything and then discards
• high costs associated with scheduling and
  completing data migration onto new formats.
• high likelihood that data migration will never
  occur, leading to.
• Jessica Bushey, Head of Digital Imaging, UBC
  Museum of Anthropology
• Milt Shefter, Miljoy Enterprises,Inc.

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Some call it migration, I call it data loss, so
lets call the whole thing off!

• Migration is the default preservation policy and
  archival planning model when no other options are
  available or being considered
• Migration is a loss/loss situation
• you migrate and you migrate and you migrate some
  more, trying to keep up with the Jones
• OR
• you fail to migrate and lose access and control
  over the collection

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The Solution

• Archival planning and preservation policy which
  reflects security requirements, user needs and
  archival standards
• ROI
• An accessible physical archive whose focus is on
  providing access to the data, not on managing the
  physical components of storage on multiple
  production formats.

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Linear Tape Open Technology

• Provides storage on a relatively low-cost, open
  source, cross-platform compatible, portable,
  physically robust archival tape standard
• ROI
• eliminate costs and time associated with
  migration of data, no migration data loss, avoid
  issues associated with technological obsolescence
  and lack of archival planning
• recycle expensive XDcam, Beta cam and other
  proprietary camera disks for repeated uses as
  camera media showing a positive ROI
• Warner Bros NBCUniversal/Universal Studios The
  ResearchChannel
• Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and
  Moving Images Sony Pictures Entertainment

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• Bibliography
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts Sciences Andy
  Maltz, Director, Science Technology Council
• NBCUniversal/Universal Studios Tom Regal,
  Director, Audio Restoration and Preservation
  Jeff Taylor, Chief Engineer, Post Production
  Sound
• Warner Brothers Steven Anastasi VP of Inventory
  and Preservation
• The Walt Disney Company Madi Solomon, Business
  Nomenclature Taxonomy Analyst
• National Geographic Television Philip Spiegel,
  Director, Archives and Cataloguing
• The ResearchChannel, University of Washington
  Nate McQueen, Media Systems Architect
• Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and
  Moving Images Martin Jacobson, Head of
  Technology and Development
• Sony Pictures Entertainment with Ascent Media
  Tony Beswick, Sr. Vice president Technical
  Operations, Sony Pictures Entertainment Worldwide
  Fulfillment Group
• More Eggs in One Basket Will Blu-ray and HD-DVD
  Be Archival? digitalcontentproducer.com, October
  13, 2005, D.W. Leitner
• Removable Storage Media for Digital Image
  Preservation Jessica Bushey, Head of Digital
  Imaging, UBC Museum of Anthropology