Rob Poretti will give a lecture at the 7th Joint Technical Symposium (JTS) in Toronto titled "Automated Workflows in Mass Audio Archiving".

Friday, 29th June 2007

Abstract:
Migrating large audio archives represents a daunting task. Once the archive is cataloged, assessed and prioritized for preservation activities, managing an efficient transition to a digital carrier poses its own sets of challenges. This paper investigates computerized solutions for the mass-migration of analog and digital archival media, to mass-storage systems.

Processes covered include

• Importing legacy data to generate work-flows and system jobs.
• Digitization of analog material with quality analysis.
• Using quality analysis meta-data to drive automatic batch processes.
• Using batch-processing to generate multiple derivatives.
• Reporting and Exporting meta-data to the Preservation database.

Some archival media lend themselves to more efficient ingest strategies. For example, by their nature, optical media archives can be transferred at many times "real-time". New technologies now allow for faster than real-time transfers for analog media as well. The paper will investigate the ramifications of:

• Multiple stream digitization - up to 8 simultaneous devices.
• Ingest speeds from 1/8th to 8x real time.
• Forward/Reverse digitization for cassettes and 1/4 track reels.
• Multi-channel digitization up to 8 channels per stream.

Mass digitization strategies have their own sets of challenges. Operators need specialized tools to manage multiple streams simultaneously, especially when they originate from different media types. Purpose built monitoring functions required for digitizing in reverse, or high-speed ingest, will be investigated.

When the digital master is created, browsing copies and other derivatives may be required on a timely basis or in an automated fashion. This paper examines an approach to an extensible automated batch processor for digital archives that integrates into the entire archive system.

Maybe someone will remember, Joerg Houpert's presentation 7 years ago at the 5th Joint Technical Symposium JTS-2000 in Paris

Transfer of Large Collections from the Analogue Domain into Digital Mass Storage Systems - Challenge and Response.

Abstract:
Automatic error detection, automatic creation of metadata and an optimized workflow are the key technologies to overcome the challenge of transferring large analogue sound archives into the digital domain, while assuring technical quality and cost efficiency, in particular under economic points of view. A concept will be presented for the entire migration chain from analogue sound carriers to digital audio files, preferably in the Broadcast Wave Format (BWF), to be stored in digital mass storage systems.

It is exciting to see how the concept of "quality controlled ingest", invented by workgroups of public European broadcast stations in cooperation with the IRT (Broadcast Technology Institute) and put into practice for the first time ever by QUADRIGA version 1, has grown in just a few years time to become the leading archive solution, helping clients from Finland to New Zealand and from Russia, Europe, USA or Asia to save the world's cultural sound heritage.

QUADRIGA version 3 will define a new milestone in offering the most flexible and reliable technology, supporting all the processes of whole archiving workgroups in a Sound Preservation Factory down to an inexpensive single box solution for the needs of small archives.