What is Archive Transfer Technology?
The process of transferring archival assets (carriers or pre-exixting media files) to files which are to be stored in an archive repository, MAM, or PAM is the main focus of NOA's "ARCHIVE TRANSFER TECHNOLOGY" branch.
Archival assets thereby include audio and SD-video carriers of various kinds as well as existing digital content. Built around a stable and efficient end-to-end process at its heart, several industrial digitization facilities run inhouse by NOA's clients have successfully transferred more than 4.2 million hours of audio and video material to date.
Whereas the processes behind NOA's ARCHIVE TRANSFER TECHNOLOGY concentrate on the production of media files (including technical metadata, which are then both processed e.g. by an existing MAM system), NOA's ARCHIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT is dealing with the challenges of the actual archiving of media and metadata to build sustainable archives for years and decades to come.
For an archive transfer project, NOA provides technology (software and hardware) as well as workflows and training enclosed in a stable and economic process, enabling clients to carry out the entirety of the project by themselves. NOA's systems are scalable to any project's size or time frame, whereas any required number of ingest (i.e. digitization) streams and server-side processors (e.g. transcoders, file analysis tools etc.) are embedded in an appropriate process framework.
In order to be able to successfully and economically digitize 1000 and more carriers per day for several years of project time, a stable process has to be the basis of every industrial digitization facility. NOA is able to provide required technology as well as workflows and processes to successfully engage in the task of digitizing entire archives of 100,000+ carriers, minimizing OPEX cost as well as operational risks for multi-annual projects. Comprehensive processes thereby not only include digitization and transcoding but start at the very beginning, when an editor orders content or an archivist retrieves a tape from the shelf, and go to the very end, when orders are delivered and tapes resorted or even destroyed.
Some corner stones of an industrial digitization facility based on NOA solutions:
- Optimized end-to-end processes
- Flexible towards input and output (multiple carrier and file formats available)
- Multiple levels of quality control for media files as well as the overall process
- Reduction of manual carrier handling time
- Labor and decision separation
- Scalability of all system components
- Based on standard IT components
Do I, as an archivist, want to create a 1:1 copy of my carriers after digitization or do I have to go for a playout optimized format?
NOA is offering reliable processes to reflect an archivist's challenges beyond digitization itself. Availabile tools and features provide solutions for both cases, namely the production of either a facsimile or some sort of interpretation of the digitized material (i.e. a "1:1 copy" or "broadcast ready material") - or even both at the same time. With NOA QualityChecker, a workflow integrated QC tool, annotation of digitized material is possible either to be stored as metadata alongside with archived material and/or to be used as input for later normalization towards a broadcast ready file.