Interview Email

An Open Email To Televisionarchive.org 

**FROM: G. A. Green  4/10/2021

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I would like to know more about televisionarchive.org

I am a video archive consultant located in Boston with clients across the country. My mission is advising corporations and media centers regarding best practices for digitization of film, audio, and video archives. I am alarmed by the increasing amount of media that is disintegrating to non-playable condition. The machines to play back the media are steadily going out of service. The technicians who know how to operate the equipment are retiring, have retired, or have passed away. Much of the media that has been digitized is of substandard quality. It reminds me of 72dpi web imagery at computer screen resolution being used for printed publication because the original 600dpi version was no longer available. New technology is steadily making its way to market to upscale, detail enhance, color correct, and more. But this technology works a lot better on content that has been digitized at a level matching the quality of the original properly conserved tape.

I'm confident these issues are not new to you.

Would it be possible to do a zoom interview of someone from your organization for my new blog? https://tapetransfer.blogspot.com

It is challenging to build awareness for this growing problem and I would really appreciate knowing more about your efforts.

I am in the process of vetting engineers and transfer facilities and trying to build a community of professionals who can accelerate the digitization of important media. I've also been exploring a process of shared media logging, commentary and search information databasing. Specifically a video browsing tool for use with a smartphone. It is a similar idea to the leveraged use of Captcha to crowdsource verification of scanned text.

Thank you very much for any information you can provide and also let me know if someone would be willing to do a zoom interview for my blog.

Very kind regards,

G. Almont Green

The Cost

It's not easy to find out exactly how much it will cost to get a videotape archive digitized. That's because there are so many variables that can impact the cost. Armed with the right information about the archive before negotiating a price with a vendor can save a great deal of time, headaches, and unexpected charges. A visual inspection of the tapes can provide a clue, but nothing is completely certain until the tape passes a VTR play head. 

If there are more than a dozen tapes, there are two checklists that should be completed before and during a discussion with a vendor. I recommend using an independent consultant as part of the process who can speak to all of the issues related to cost and help you set the quality standard for digitization.

● Does the tape reel or cassette require repair or preparation?

● Does the tape itself require cleaning, baking, or other conservation methods?

● Is the videotape PAL or NTSC?

● Do the tapes need to be digitized for output to today's technology displays?
(Resolution scaling, de-interlacing, color/dynamic range correction)

● Do you need low-resolution and high-resolution versions?

● Do you require physical digital storage devices?

● How do you want the content curated? 

● Who is actually going to be doing the work (their credentials)?

● What equipment do they have (how many redundant machines)?

● Do they have/use Teranex Standards Converters/Processors? (If not, what are they using?)

● What methods do they use for conservation, cleaning, baking?

● What minimum hourly rate do they use to calculate their quotation?

● Who can be called as a reference?

● Can they provide a scope of work document along with a proposal?

● What is their standard level of quality?

● What guarantees do they provide?

● What surcharges are there?

● What are the options (noise reduction, sound sweetening, de-hum)?

Ballpark $

1" Type C NTSC videotapes ballpark cost falls between $75 and $150 per hour of tape

3/4" U-Matic ballpark cost falls between $0.60 and $2.00 per minute of tape. 

BetaSP ballpark cost falls between $0.30 and $2.00 per minute of tape. 

For an archive with 125 - 200 professional format tapes, a budget of $10,000+ can be appropriate and expected.

If you are thinking that over ten grand is simply out of the question, there are other components to this analysis. For example:

• Can the digitized archive have a value that exceeds the cost of digitization? 
• What about reclaiming the space now used as storage? 
• Is there a possibility to license footage directly or through a licensing entity like Shutterstock?
• What is the true liability of losing the archive for future generations? Who knows how important and valuable the archive will be 100 years from now?

One thing is certain, if the archive ends up in a dumpster then all is lost including the investment made storing it for years.

-G