Digitalization, re-purposing and monetization of film

There are millions of hours of film in existence, and they need to be scanned so that material can be re- purposed, re-distributed, used as a reference or monetized in any other way.

The longer analog media such as film is stored, the higher the risk of its loss:

  • hardware required for playing the material disappears
  • decay due to long storage periods and conditions
  • misjudgment of content, its importance and its potentia
  • continuous postponement of digitalization

New scanner, new possibilities

Blackmagic design has taken over development from Cintel and had their engineers develop a revolutionary scanner which communicates via a Thunderbolt 2 interface and is operated using the colorgrading software DaVinci Resolve.

The Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner makes digitalization attainable to a large audience – technologically and with regards to pricing. Keeping the digitized film on disk, however, is only part of the process. To be accessible and safe, film collections need to be archived and enriched with descriptions, i.e. metadata.

Archive software for easy access

Managing thousands of clips requires software that allows quick and easy browsing and searching. Archiware P5 Archive does just that. The software is very flexible and drives disk and tape storage of virtually any size. Standalone LTO drive and tape libraries can serve as archive storage. Integrated tape cloning offers maximum security by writing two identical tape sets, one of which can be stored offsite. Drive parallelization allows for multiplied throughput for high-level requirements. Restore to LTFS tapes creates universal compatibility for transferring or sending data.

Key features of P5 Archive:

  • Proxy clips for preview and visual search
  • Combined search over multiple fields

 

  • Extendable metadata fields and menus
  • Cloud, disk, tape and tape library support

Metadata fields, combined search and previews in Archiware P5 Archive

LTO – the long-term medium

Long-term archiving requires storage media that fulfills the specifications for long-term data security. LTO tape is the medium of choice here: it boasts a certified lifespan of 30 years and a number of ven- dors for drives, libraries and media. It also offers the lowest cost per TB, which makes it attractive for large collections. The required storage space is very compact due to the native capacity of 6 TB (LTO-7).

More details and information about digitalization of film on our blog.

Archiware P5 Archive as a video archive.