FAST (Film Archive Superior Transfer) – A new paradigm for digital preservation of audio visual heritage through fast and cost-efficient film digitization

Project Information

FAST

Grant agreement ID: 743799

DOI

10.3030/743799

Project closed

EC signature date 1 December 2016

Start date 1 November 2016

End date 31 March 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

FASTFORWARD APS
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FAST (FAST (Film Archive Superior Transfer) – A new paradigm for digital preservation of audio visualheritage through fast and cost-efficient film digitization)

Reporting period: 2016-11-01 to 2017-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Currently, over 40 years of television records are deteriorating and will be lost. Existing solutions for film digitization are complex and extremely expensive, especially for processing very large collections, such as television materials kept by the major broadcasters. Nevertheless, there is a high commercial as well as public/societal interest in preserving those media contents. Hence, several broadcasters have launched large scale digitization projects – representing multi-million Euro efforts over several years – to save their media collections. Nevertheless, it is estimated that there are 50 to 100 million hours of content on film worldwide, not including feature films, and only a few percent of these contents will be digitized with the existing solutions. FASTFORWARD wants to seize this market opportunity by offering an integrated solution consisting of proprietary hardware, cloud-based software and support in one, easy-to-scale service. Our solution will disrupt the current digitization workflows creating a new paradigm that will bring unprecedented speed (10x faster) and low cost (tenfold cost reduction) compared to traditional film digitization processes.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During our feasibility study we have managed to engage in a number of collaborations and market assessments including several pilot showcases with large international broadcasters which support our insights and theses from our Phase 1 EU application, where we gathered additional data on the very competitive image quality of scannned films and unmatched improved in digitization speed/costs. All of the involved organizations and institutions have expressed their support to our new approach and a potential interest in becoming test partners in the coming refinement of our technology and solution.
We have significantly improved our market intelligence regarding the true extent of the market share taken by smaller film institutions and, together with lead institutions, defined a set of key features to be added to FFW’s portfolio. Lastly, FFW’s business plan were updated according to these key findings.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Based on the insight and knowledge collected we have prepared a new plan for FASTFORWARD’s future growth and market expansion. The worldwide market for digitization of content on film is estimated at over €1 billion. This represents a huge business opportunity for FASTFORWARD, who expects to grow from its current start-up phase towards a solid business, sustainably growing to 30+ employees by 2024, and large potential to keep steady growth beyond.

FFW motto