Fall 2007, Weeks 7

Things are finally coming together.

Week 7 is hard to describe since most of my time was spent researching trends and technologies for digitally archiving video. The week can also be said to be a period of finalization of scope. After getting a firmer grip on what we are going to do with the digitized video, it was easier to know what we can do with the digital collection in the rest of the semester.

Here's the story.

Inventory ATN collection. - - Check! We have a worst-case scenario of 145 hours
of video at 13 GB per hour. This is about 2TB of
video.
Cost analysis - - - - - - - - Check!
2TBs external hard disk storage, approximately $1000.
DVDs, $300.
DVCAM, $2239 for 145 64 minute tapes. OUCH!
Server storage, $10 a gigabyte. Ouch, ouch.

Every format has its ups and downs. Without a lot more money we cannot get a totally lossless digital master video file. What we have on hand is the U-Matic anolog-to-DV conversion through the DVCAM deck into Final Cut Pro. The best signal we get out of this is DV NTSC 48kHz. Yes, it is a bit compressed, but considering that we're coming from 30 year old U-Matics, the compression won't be all that noticeable. Also in consideration of the 30 year old tapes: we don't have time to wait around for better equipment. I've already seen some serious signal loss (though after putting up a post on the American Moving Image Archivists list-serv I may be able to get some signal back by cleaning and "baking" the tape. I don't know how to do the prior, and I don't know what the latter even means... some other time).

DVD is super compressed, 1/5 of broadcast quality signal in the DVD MPEG2 compression format. Good for access though.

DVCAM. Tape is tape and tape is vulnerable. Vulnerable to impacts, manufacturing errors, environmental stress, etc. And it only has a life expectancy of 5 - 15 years to boot. Considering the cost of DVCAM tapes and its lifespan, this is not the way to go because we would just have to migrate again in 5 - 10 years, spending more money.

So what will we do? This project is an experiment. I think I'm the only one with any video experience and that is scary. Sid likes the external hard disk approach with DVD access copies. Digital Library Services wants me to focus on the digital collection without getting too bogged down in preservation and thinks external hard disks are too fragile, not to mention need preparedness for platform/software emulation. What they want me to do is digitize an A-Team selection of tapes, store them on the server, and get to work cataloging and building the collection interface. Good idea.

I am soooooo interested in video preservation, and I have learned some about this confusing subject this week. I would like the opportunity to learn more, but Nicki pointed out that if I don't move forward with building the digital collection I won't have anything to show for my work. Good idea. I'll move forward with the collection and worry about the preservation more later.