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)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2016-11-01 al 2017-03-31
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.
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.
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.
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.