We have previously written on this blog about the problems that can occur when transferring Digital Audio Tapes (DATs). According to preliminary findings from the British Library’s important survey of the UK’s sound collections, there are 3353 DAT tapes in the UK’s archives. While this is by no means a final figure (and does not include the… Continue reading Mouldy DATs
Tag: data migration
Codecs and Wrappers for Digital Video
In the last Greatbear article we quoted sage advice from the International Association of Audiovisual Archivists: ‘Optimal preservation measures are always a compromise between many, often conflicting parameters.’ [1] While this statement is true in general for many different multi-format collections, the issue of compromise and conflicting parameters becomes especially apparent with the preservation of… Continue reading Codecs and Wrappers for Digital Video
Digitising small audiovisual collections: making decisions and taking action
Deciding when to digitise your magnetic tape collections can be daunting. The Presto Centre, an advocacy organisation working to help ‘keep audiovisual content alive,’ have a graphic on their website which asks: ‘how digital are our members?’ They chart the different stages of ‘uncertainty,’ ‘awakening’, ‘enlightenment’, ‘wisdom’ and ‘certainty’ that organisations move through as they… Continue reading Digitising small audiovisual collections: making decisions and taking action
Save our Sounds – 2030 and the threat of audiovisual extinction
At the beginning of 2015, the British Library launched the landmark Save Our Sounds project. The press release explained: ‘The nation’s sound collections are under threat, both from physical degradation and as the means of playing them disappear from production. Archival consensus internationally is that we have approximately 15 years in which to save our sound collections… Continue reading Save our Sounds – 2030 and the threat of audiovisual extinction
Videokunstarkivet – Norway’s Digital Video Art Archive
We have recently digitised a U-matic video tape of eclectic Norwegian video art from the 1980s. The tape documents a performance by Kjartan Slettemark, an influential Norwegian/ Swedish artist who died in 2008. The tape is the ‘final mix’ of a video performance entitled Chromakey Identity Blue in which Slettemark live mixed several video sources onto… Continue reading Videokunstarkivet – Norway’s Digital Video Art Archive
Digital preservation – a selection of online resources
Update 2020: We are updating and maintaining this list of useful web links in the Resources section of our website here: Digital and Audiovisual Preservation – Online Resources If you are new to the world of digital preservation, you may be feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of technical terms and professional practices to contend with,… Continue reading Digital preservation – a selection of online resources
Digitising Stereo Master Hi-Fi VHS Audio Recordings
The history of amateur recording is peppered with examples of people who stretched technologies to their creative limit. Whether this comes in the form of hours spent trying things out and learning through doing, endlessly bouncing tracks in order to turn an 8-track recording into a 24-track epic or making high quality audio masters on… Continue reading Digitising Stereo Master Hi-Fi VHS Audio Recordings
2″ Quad Video Tape Transfers – new service offered
We are pleased to announce that we are now able to support the transfer of 2″ Quadruplex Video Tape (PAL, SECAM & NTSC) to digital formats. 2” Quad was a popular broadcast analogue video tape format whose halcyon period ran from the late 1950s to the 1970s. The first quad video tape recorder made by AMPEX in… Continue reading 2″ Quad Video Tape Transfers – new service offered
EIAJ ½ inch Video Tape Transfers – Working with Community Groups to Develop Digitisation Projects
We understand that when organisations decide to digitise magnetic tape collections the whole process can take significant amounts of time. From initial condition appraisals, to selecting which items to digitise, many questions, as well as technical and cultural factors, have to be taken into account before a digital transfer can take place. This is further… Continue reading EIAJ ½ inch Video Tape Transfers – Working with Community Groups to Develop Digitisation Projects
Early digital tape recordings on PCM/ U-matic and Betamax video tape
We are now used to living in a born-digital environment, but the transition from analogue to digital technologies did not happen overnight. In the late 1970s, early digital audio recordings were made possible by a hybrid analogue/digital system. It was composed by the humble transport and recording mechanisms of the video tape machine, and a… Continue reading Early digital tape recordings on PCM/ U-matic and Betamax video tape
Digital Optical Technology System – ‘A non-magnetic, 100 year, green solution for data storage.’
‘A non-magnetic, 100 year, green solution for data storage.’ This is the stuff of digital information managers’ dreams. No more worrying about active data management, file obsolescence or that escalating energy bill. Imagine how simple life would be if there was a way to store digital information that could last, without intervention, for nearly 100… Continue reading Digital Optical Technology System – ‘A non-magnetic, 100 year, green solution for data storage.’
Digital Preservation – Establishing Standards and Challenges for 2014
2014 will no doubt present a year of new challenges for those involved in digital preservation. A key issue remains the sustainability of digitisation practices within a world yet to establish firm standards and guidelines. Creating lasting procedures capable of working across varied and international institutions would bring some much needed stability to a profession often characterized… Continue reading Digital Preservation – Establishing Standards and Challenges for 2014
End of year thank yous to our customers
What a year it has been in the life of Greatbear Analogue and Digital Media. As always the material customers have sent us to digitise has been fascinating and diverse, both in terms of the recordings themselves and the technical challenges presented in the transfer process. At the end of a busy year we want to… Continue reading End of year thank yous to our customers
Digitising NAB radio broadcast cartridges
The NAB Cartridge (named after the National Association of Broadcasters) was a mainstay of radio broadcasting from the late 1950s-1990s. It was replaced by the mini disc and computerised broadcast automatons. NAB Cartridges were used primarily for jingles, station identifications, commercials and music. Each cartridge comprised of several recordings of the same, short jingle. Mechanically… Continue reading Digitising NAB radio broadcast cartridges
Digitise VHS Tapes – Bristol’s Meet Your Feet
We recently digitised some VHS tapes from when Bristol-based band Meet Your Feet performed on HTV in 1990. Meet Your Feet ‘formed in 1988 as a result of three of the women getting together to start a women’s music workshop, Meet Your Feet played its first gig in June 1988, when asked to get a… Continue reading Digitise VHS Tapes – Bristol’s Meet Your Feet
A word about metadata and digital collections
Metadata is data about data. Maybe that sounds pretty boring, but archivists love it, and it is really important for digitisation work. As mentioned in the previous post that focused on the British Library’s digital preservation strategies, as well as many other features on this blog, it is fairly easy to change a digital file without… Continue reading A word about metadata and digital collections
Digitisation strategies – back up, bit rot, decay and long term preservation
In a blog post a few weeks ago we reflected on several practical and ethical questions emerging from our digitisation work. To explore these issues further we decided to take an in-depth look at the British Library’s Digital Preservation Strategy 2013-2016 that was launched in March 2013. The British Library is an interesting case study because they were… Continue reading Digitisation strategies – back up, bit rot, decay and long term preservation
Measuring signals – challenges for the digitisation of sound and video
In a 2012 report entitled ‘Preserving Sound and Moving Pictures’ for the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Technology Watch Report series, Richard Wright outlines the unique challenges involved in digitising audio and audiovisual material. ‘Preserving the quality of the digitized signal’ across a range of migration processes that can negotiate ‘cycles of lossy encoding, decoding and reformatting… Continue reading Measuring signals – challenges for the digitisation of sound and video
Curating Digital Information or What Do You With Your Archive?
Today is the first day of iPres 2013, the 10th international conference on the preservation of digital objects held in Lisbon, Portugal. To mark the occasion we want to reflect on an issue that is increasingly important for the long term management of digital data: curation. Anyone who has lived through the digital transition in… Continue reading Curating Digital Information or What Do You With Your Archive?
C-120 Audio Cassette Transfer – the importance of high quality formats
In archiving, the simple truth is formats matter. If you want the best quality recording, that not only sounds good but has a strong chance of surviving over time, it needs to be recorded on an appropriate format. Most of us, however, do not have specialised knowledge of recording technologies and use what is immediately… Continue reading C-120 Audio Cassette Transfer – the importance of high quality formats
Sony V62 EIAJ reel to reel video tape transfer for Barrie Hesketh
We have recently been sent a Sony V62 high density video tape by Barrie Hesketh. Barrie has had an active career in theatre and in 1966 he set up the Mull Little Theatre on the Isle of Mull off the West Coast of Scotland with his late wife Marianne Hesketh. Specialising in what Barrie calls… Continue reading Sony V62 EIAJ reel to reel video tape transfer for Barrie Hesketh
What is the future of analogue media?
In a recent blog article on the Presto Centre website, Richard Wright argues that ‘the audiovisual collections of the 20th century were analogue, and we are now at a critical time for considering the digital future of that analogue content.’ He goes on to say, emphatically: ‘All analogue audio and video formats are obsolete. Digital… Continue reading What is the future of analogue media?
Digital Preservation – Planning for the Long Term
There are plenty of reflections on the Great Bear tape blog about the fragility of digital data, and the need to think about digitisation as part of a wider process of data migration your information will need to make in its lifetime. We have also explored how fast moving technological change can sometimes compromise our… Continue reading Digital Preservation – Planning for the Long Term
From digital files back to analogue tape
The bread and butter work of Greatbear Analogue and Digital Media is to migrate analogue and digital magnetic tape to digital files, but recently we were asked by a customer to transfer a digital file to ¼ analogue tape. The customer was concerned about the longevity of electronic digital formats, and wanted to transfer his… Continue reading From digital files back to analogue tape
Real time transfers – digitising tape media
In theory the work we do at Greatbear is very simple: we migrate information from analogue or digital magnetic tape to electronic digital files. Once transferred, digital files can be easily edited, tagged, accessed, shared or added to a database. Due to the ubiquitous nature of digital media today, if you want to use your… Continue reading Real time transfers – digitising tape media
Archiving for the digital long term: information management and migration
As an archival process digitisation offers the promise of a dream: improved accessibility, preservation and storage. However the digital age is not without its archival headaches. News of the BBC’s plans to abandon their Digital Media Initiative (DMI), which aimed to make the BBC media archive ‘tapeless’, clearly demonstrates this. As reported in The Guardian:… Continue reading Archiving for the digital long term: information management and migration
Convert, Join, re encode AVCHD .MTS files in Ubuntu Linux
One of our audio and video archive customers has a large collection of AVCHD video files that are stored in 1.9GB ‘chunks’ as xxxxx.MTS files. All these files are of 60 minute and longer duration and must be joined, deinterlaced, re encoded to a suitable size and bitrate then uploaded for online access. This is… Continue reading Convert, Join, re encode AVCHD .MTS files in Ubuntu Linux