 |
 |
Sent to multiple lists so please excuse the duplication.
The Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Audio-Visual Working Group is pleased to announce the publication of two reports dealing with video.
1. Digital File Formats for Videotape Reformatting: The project to compare video formats for reformatting is being led by the National Archives and Records Administration with significant input from the Library of Congress. The resulting matrixes offer comparisons of the wrappers AVI, MOV (QuickTime), Matroska, MXF, and MPEG-2 (ad hoc file wrapper), and the following encodings: uncompressed (various types), lossless JPEG 2000, ffv1, and MPEG-2 (encoding). This work compliments the FADGI Audio-Visual Working Group's active contributions to the finalization of the MXF AS-07 application specification for preservation and archiving, a "pre-version" of which has been adopted by the Library of Congress as their video preservation format. Nevertheless, as the finalization of AS-07 continues, members of the Working Group and others have expressed interest in evaluating alternate digital file formats. These alternate formats may be appropriate to certain classes of content, for use as interim measures, or may be preferred by organizations where they make a better fit for existing systems and architectures. Home page: http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/video_reformatting_compare.html
2. Creating and Archiving Born Digital Video: The born digital video exploration is being led by the Library of Congress. The four documents that comprise Creating and Archiving Born Digital Video provide practical technical information for both file creators and file archivists to help them make informed decisions when creating or archiving born digital video files and to understand the long term consequences of those decisions. Eight case histories document aspects of the current state of practice in six federal agencies working with born digital video. These case histories not only document deliverables and specifications but also tell the story of each project, and provide background information about the institution and the collection, as well as lessons learned. As the case histories developed, a set of high level recommended practices emerged from the collective project experiences. These recommended practices are intended to support informed decision-making and guide file creators and archivists as they seek out processes, file characteristics, and other practices that will yield files with the greatest preservation potential. Home page: http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/video_bornDigital.html
These documents have already been reviewed by FADGI members and specialists in the field, including the IASA Technical Committee. With this release, we seek feedback from all interested parties through the end of January, 2015. Please send your comments through the FADGI website. You may also contact the authors directly: Courtney Egan ([log in to unmask]) for the video format comparison matrix and Kate Murray ([log in to unmask]) for the born digital video report. After we have heard from readers and have revised and improved the documents, we will publish the final versions of the reports on the FADGI website.
BTW: The preceding and a related still-image format comparison are linked from this page: http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/File_format_compare.html.
********************
Kate Murray
Office of Strategic Initiatives
Library of Congress
202-707-4894