The European Parliament’s (EP’s) audiovisual unit oversees its EP’s media archive, which is maintained for the legal and historical record as well as for the use of members of Parliament, journalists and scholars.
Today, the EP’s centralised digital archive is believed to be both the first in Europe to include an integrated end-to-end system for migrating analogue content into the fully managed digital realm, and the first of its kind implemented with the express purpose of ensuring governmental transparency.
Archivists at the European Parliament had for a long time been aware that the lack of consistency in storage formats created headaches whenever they sought to find, identify, or retrieve specific content. The audiovisual unit therefore undertook to migrate some 12 000 hours of the EP’s legacy media content from storage on videotape into the managed digital environment. To accomplish this, the unit and Broadcasting Centre Europe (BCE) deployed six Front Porch Digital SAMMA solo systems arrayed in a set-up with legacy VTRs and interfaced to an existing Sony Flexicart system. The SAMMAsolos’ flexibility enabled them to work in tandem with the legacy FlexiCart systems, reducing overall project costs.
The SAMMAsolo is a semi automated system that performs real-time, simultaneous encoding of content from videotape into multiple digital files, and then manages their ingest into the digital workflow. An essential aspect of the project’s cost-effectiveness and its ultimate success was the SAMMAsolo’s flexible capability of interfacing with the audiovisual unit’s existing system.
Likewise, the SAMMAsolo device has the unique capability of real-time migration of content into multiple digital file formats, enabling the project to meet.
As a whole the system is unified through the use of a much-expanded and upgraded Front Porch Digital DIVArchive content storage management system.
To overcome the challenges specifically related to access, the EP audiovisual unit also implemented Front Porch Digital’s DIVAdirector application as an integral part of the centralised archive. Running in combination with DIVArchive and a Harris T-Rex media asset management system, DIVAdirector is enabling the cataloging and tracking of archived media assets, allowing 16 EP editorial staff archivists to browse content in the form of automatically generated low-bit-rate proxies, to create frameaccurate shot lists, and to use customisable metadata to find and identify specific media using query tools. In contrast to a videotape archive, the centralised digital system supports the archivists’ efficiency by enabling them to enjoy simultaneous, high-speed access to content.
An integrated hardware and software solution, DIVAdirector features mirrored system disks and RAID 5 storage for Windows Media 9 proxies. Because DIVAdirector can import legacy databases of virtual assets, such as those still stored on videotape, along with their associated metadata field mapping, this made it possible for the EP to track even content that was not yet digitised.
Once file-based content and proxies have been ingested, DIVAdirector automatically links them to their appropriate virtual assets. Therefore, the system enables consolidation of comprehensive data on all EP’s media collection via a single interface.
Other companies using Front Porch Digital’s DIVAdirector asset management system include FATS Digital in Australia, the Danish Film Institute in Denmark and TSmedia (the media arm of Telekom Slovenia Group).
screen africa magazine – march 2013
