Entertainment that lasts
Entertainment that lasts
How ScreenSound Australia preserves the output of the nation's favourite TV and radio stars for future generations to enjoy all over again.
Superficially, at least, ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive, is not an organisation that one immediately thinks about when considering data storage and digital asset management. Nevertheless, ScreenSound has over a million items in its collection, a large part of which is stored digitally, all of which is accessioned on MAVIS (Merged Audio Visual Information System)-a digital storage and asset management system developed by ScreenSound and Wizard Software and sold around the world.
From feature films and documentaries to recordings of radio plays and serials from the Golden Age of Radio, such as Blue Hills and Dad and Dave, news and current affairs bulletins on both audio and video, and TV dramas such as Sea Change, Blue Heelers and McLeod's Daughters; the collection also includes posters, film scripts, storyboards, costumes and props.
With such a large and diverse collection, deciding where to allocate his resources is a major challenge for Ian Gilmour, Senior Manager, Preservation and Technical Services. The most critical decision facing Gilmour is deciding on what is most urgently in need of preservation. ScreenSound's most important tool in working out what needs to be prioritised is MAVIS.
"We record a lot of information into MAVIS about the material when it comes in and we've got a team that works full time on prioritising the flow of copying and digitising work so the material at the greatest risk is at the top of the queue. There's a systematised risk management process in place and we schedule it to be completed just in time or just before time."
While deciding which part of the collection should have the highest priority is vitally important, determining the most appropriate media is not always a simple task either. Cost and accuracy of reproduction are important considerations, but so is accessibility. "It's important not just to save something forever but also to make it available," says Gilmour.
All these considerations came into play when ScreenSound began digitising and storing the Archive's entire audio collection onto a Storage Area Network (SAN). Consisting of hundreds of thousands of items, the Archive's audio collection includes everything from programs from Golden Age of Radio to variety shows boasting first performances of future stars such as Marjorie Crawford and Dame Joan Sutherland, as well as oral history and news and current affairs bulletins. Audio from the 1930s through to the 1950s was recorded onto lacquered disks made of nitrate.
Because these disks, called acetates, wear out over time re-recording them was a high priority and when quarter-inch tape ceased to be supported, the archive made the decision to standardise on a digital format for all audio. "We had to stop buying different formats because we were just copying from one to the next in an ever increasing loop as formats became obsolete," says Gilmour. "We're now storing all our audio as data files which has been facilitated by a worldwide agreement to use Wave (.WAV) files as a basic standard."
While the demise of quarter-inch tape marked the passing of an era, storing audio files digitally has advantages of both cost and accessibility. "When you're recording a program, you don't have to worry whether you're going to run out of blank tape because you're recording into a big hard disk array which gets backed up automatically," explains Gilmour.
It's also much cheaper to record audio files onto the SAN. A reel of quarter-inch tape costing $35 to $40 would only hold 30 minutes of audio, or an hour at slightly lower quality. But a high-resolution, 24-bit audio file might take up 2GB which costs less than a dollar, according to Gilmour. Cost and state of preservation aren't the only factors Gilmour needs to consider-it is also important that the collection is accessible. "We sometimes send people CD copies but when it's on centralised data storage it's a lot easier just to send an MP-3 file so we're not dealing with physical media at all," says Gilmour.
The same approach was taken when ScreenSound digitised its extensive collection of still images and documentation. "We have hundreds of thousands of films, videos, vinyl and lacquered discs, CDs and tapes, but there's as much documentation material combined: posters, storyboards, scripts, costumes and props, all the supporting material that gives context to a movie. We found that it was much more cost effective to scan it in and store digitally. Previously, researchers would have to use the white gloves on site, but now they can just use a disposable digital copy."
Film and video presents its own challenges. The cost per megabyte of storing moving images is still too high for ScreenSound to consider moving feature films onto its SAN. Gilmour realises, however, that with the cost of disk-based storage halving every year, it will be viable in about five years and is already planning for that eventuality. For the moment, the only exception to this are restoration projects but because film-especially polyester-based stock-is quite a stable medium, lasting well over a hundred years if stored properly, he can wait.
Newer formats such as video are more of problem because there has been a proliferation of formats and ironically, some more recent tapes are in worse condition than the old. "One collection we're doing a lot of work on now is news and current affairs from the 1970s. From the late 70s through to the 80s, the glue holding the oxide onto the surface reacts with moisture and goes sticky. It's one of the worst periods for audio and video so we're restoring those."
The results of all this work can be seen on Screen-Sound's website (www.screensound.com.au). Whatever your interest is, if it was produced in Australia there's a good chance it will be there. Punch "Waltzing Matilda" into MAVIS and you'll get over 200 versions of Australia's unofficial anthem dating from 1927 to 2003, several of them able to be streamed. If you're a fan of the director, Peter Weir, a search of the archive reveals 401 items including episodes of the Auntie Jack Show from the 70s, interviews with Weir and supporting documentation such as scripts, posters and sketches from films ranging from The Cars That Ate Paris to The Truman Show.
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