We have two free webinars coming up in January from American Archive of Public Broadcasting National Digital Stewardship Residents residents Eddy Colloton and Andrew Weaver!

Challenges of Removable Media in Digital Preservation (Eddy Colloton)
Thursday, January 12th, 3:00 PM ET

Removable storage media could be considered the most ubiquitous of digital formats. From floppy disks to USB flash drives, these portable, inexpensive and practical devices have been relied upon by all manner of content producers. Unfortunately, removable media is rarely designed with long-term storage in mind. Optical media is easy to scratch, flash drives can "leak" electrons, and floppy disks degrade over time. Each of these formats are unique, and carry with them their own risks. This webinar, open to the public, will focus on floppy disks, optical media, and flash drives from a preservation perspective. The discussion will include a brief description of the way information is written and stored on such formats, before detailing solutions and technology for retrieving data from these unreliable sources.

Register for "Challenges of Removing Media in Digital Preservation"<https://goo.gl/forms/XtjJzm2MPLa380KG3>

Demystifying FFmpeg/FFplay (Andrew Weaver)
Thursday, January 26th, 3:00 PM ET

The FFmpeg/FFplay combination is a surprisingly multifaceted tool that can be used in myriad ways within A/V workflows.  This webinar will present an introduction to basic FFmpeg syntax and applications (such as basic file transcoding) before moving into examples of alternate uses.  These include perceptual hashing, OCR, visual/numerical signal analysis and filter pads.

Register for "Demystifying FFmpeg/FFplay"<https://goo.gl/forms/0vNeclKXYRrnyWPo1>

Best regards,

Rebecca Fraimow

Archivist and AAPB NDSR Project Coordinator, WGBH