Based in Reykjavík, RÚV had already digitized the bulk of its audiovisual holdings and was looking for a way to handle the remaining legacy video carriers efficiently - without shipping irreplaceable tapes off the island. The broadcaster opted to bring the work fully in-house with NOA’s PICO BOX Video, a self-contained ingest unit that ships with everything required to start digitizing on day one.
The PICO BOX Video was delivered by airfreight from NOA’s Vienna headquarters as a turnkey package including all playback machines, cleaning equipment and pre-configured workflows tailored to RÚV’s carrier mix. A NOA engineer travelled to Reykjavík to train RÚV staff on both the PICO BOX Video and the operation of the legacy playback machines themselves. After plug-in and setup, the system was up and running, and is now in active production at RÚV.
The scope of the project covers RÚV’s remaining inventory of Betacam and Digital Betacam, DVCAM and 1-inch video carriers - the long tail of formats that typically remains after the easier bulk of an archive has been processed. Renting the PICO BOX Video for a planned, time-boxed campaign gave RÚV a way to address this remainder on its own terms, with full control over the masters and within a predictable budget.
RÚV is the first client worldwide to order and operate the PICO BOX Video, which NOA introduced as a compact, transportable extension of its ingestLINE family aimed at exactly this kind of finite, high-quality digitization project.
Once the bulk of an archive has been digitized, what remains is often the most difficult part - a mix of formats that doesn't justify a permanent installation. The PICO BOX Video is exactly the right tool for that stage: it lets us complete the work here in Reykjavík, with our own staff and full control over the masters at every step, on a clear timeline and without any compromise on the quality standards we hold ourselves to at RÚV.
Helga Lára Þorsteinsdóttir, Head of RÚV Archives
For NOA, the RÚV project also marks an important milestone for the PICO BOX Video product line.
RÚV is a perfect example of product–market fit. The size and form factor of the PICO BOX Video match precisely what archives need at this stage of their digitization journey: professional, high-quality output in a transportable box, flexible to set up and operate, and with a plannable project duration that suits a targeted rental period. We are proud that RÚV chose us for this work and that they are the first to put the PICO BOX Video into production.
Jean-Christophe Kummer, Managing Partner, NOA
