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Preservation Technology for European Broadcast Archives

Objective

Millions of hours of valuable multimedia content - and irreplaceable European heritage - is at risk because of ageing media and technology. The content of European public service broadcast archives is the social and cultural history of this century, on a European scale. Largely paid for by the citizens, it should be preserved for their benefit. Preservation work is costly. We propose to develop technology and processes to reduce the cost by at least 30%, and at the same time make the best use of new technology, to minimise future archive maintenance costs, and to maximise commercial and citizen access. Costs will be reduced by developing hardware and software to automate specific labour-intensive bottlenecks in preservation processes, by developing efficient metadata handling, and by identifying and using the most sustainable and cost-effective new technology.

OBJECTIVES
Goal of the Project: develop a cost-effective approach to the preservation of broadcast archives. Six major steps toward the goal:
1) dimensions of the problem - survey of European public service broadcast archive preservation requirements;
2) establish the cost/benefit of existing solutions - survey of the state-of-the-art in media preservation / digitisation / management;
3) identify business, user and legal requirements re archive use, rights management, and commercial and citizen access;
4) develop workflow efficiency - a preservation process with optimisation re equipment, staff and metadata (catalogue and rights data);
5) develop automation tools re materials handling and quality checking;
6) develop new services - opening archives to commercial and citizen access.

DESCRIPTION OF WORK
There is a spectre haunting Europe: the disappearance of European broadcast archives, and the extinction of 75 years of Europe's recorded historical and cultural memory. Broadcasting is a twentieth century industry; television is a post-war industry. Videotape came into general use thirty to thirty-five years ago. Half (or more!) of broadcast archive holdings are now ageing, and need preserving before they deteriorate beyond recovery. Equipment to play audio recordings (on vinyl and tape) - and video recordings on videotape - is now also ageing or obsolete and in short supply. Spare parts and skilled operators are also fast disappearing. Ageing media and obsolete equipment combine to produce a problem not previously encountered in broadcasting: all brodast archive material from the beginning of broadcasting to roughly the 1980?s is now at risk. The "preservation requirement" is approaching broadcasting like a tidal wave, bigger and more potentially destructive each year. The goal of the proposed project is simple and clear: to discover and develop a cost-effective approach to the preservation of broadcast archives. Specific R&D effort will develop equipment to automate key areas where at present there are high labour costs, specifically in materials handling and in quality control. This new technology will then be evaluated in practical situations on real material. The role of new technology in archives (specifically servers and network delivery) will be evaluated to establish the case, where feasible, for using this approach rather than conventional media as the storage and delivery basis for preserved material. Separate but related evaluations will be undertaken for audio, videotape and film preservation requirements and technology.

Fields of science

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinator

BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
EU contribution
No data
Address
BROADCASTING HOUSE
W1A 1AA LONDON
United Kingdom

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Total cost
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Participants (8)

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Last update: 13 June 2005

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/IST-1999-20013

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