Research leads to new film digitisation strategy

Screen Archive South East (SASE) and Prime Focus, London held a technical seminar in July to discuss a tapeless workflow for archives.  SASE Preservation & Production Manager Nick Clark demonstrated the results of his research into digitising film without using videotape as an intermediary. Clark showed how to create 2K archive masters with high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) access files to an audience of 30 technical specialists from the British Film Institute, the BBC, the Welsh Film Archive, and regional moving image archives from across the UK.

Film Archive Forum UK chair Murray Weston thanked Nick Clark and seminar organiser Martin Rogers of Prime Focus for their contribution to the event. He wrote, “The combination of demonstrations and presentations was really helpful to influence further thinking in the film and television archive community about scanning and the use of restoration software.  I am certain that this will cause much creative discussion which is likely to have a direct effect on archive access operations.” Weston also supported Clark’s proposal that continuing professional development workshops and seminars would benefit archive operational staff.

For more information about SASE's tapeless digitisation workflow......