CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized • Hacker News Board

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#11

Post by ixf » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #9

cornholio wrote: post #4

To play Devil's advocate, keeping the originals isn't just keeping, it means a commitment to maintaining them in an environmentally controlled space, following all fire prevention standards, in an organized fashion. It's easy to see why they would be wanting to cut down those costs to zero, especially due to forthcoming digitization and storage costs. On the other hand, it's also clearly an issue of controlling who h…

And why do they want to keep it? Even old film has a low resolution, let alone magnetic media. Do they expect to be able to better digitalise the same media that will be in worse state (more decay) in a distant future?

For some media, this is absolutely the case. Particularly films that are slightly damaged, or seriously damaged, it's well worth holding onto the material in order to wait for better techniques to become available.

Case in point, this recent restoration of Morecambe and Wise by BBC R&D: http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-12-morecambe-wise-video-fi...

They laser cut the film apart, then used X-ray microtomography to scan the film and some very clever software to unwarp layers from the 3D data produced by the X-ray microtomography process. Not exactly something we could've done 5 years ago.

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#12

Post by ixf » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 9:28 AM UTC

cjensen wrote: post #2

[Edit: See comment for correction that explains that Radio-Canada includes TV. I'll leave this here because some of the info is valid] From the article: It also questioned why Radio-Canada was preserving its master recordings after making digital copies but CBC had opted to rely only on digital copies This statement shows a lack of understanding of the problem. Old audio recordings can still be played. Old video reco…

Very old audio equipment is in a similar boat - I know archivists who are prioritizing stuff for digitization based on the number of tape head hours they think they've got left in older machines.

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#13

Post by eltoozero » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 9:54 AM UTC

ixf wrote: post #11

cm2187 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why do they want to keep it? Even old film has a low resolution, let alone magnetic media. Do they expect to be able to better digitalise the same media that will be in worse state (more decay) in a distant future?

For some media, this is absolutely the case. Particularly films that are slightly damaged, or seriously damaged, it's well worth holding onto the material in order to wait for better techniques to become available. Case in point, this recent restoration of Morecambe and Wise by BBC R&D: http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-12-morecambe-wise-video-fi... They laser cut the film apart, then used X-ray microtomography to sc…

Now that was an excellent read, quite astounding.

Please post to HN front page and re-post as updates occur!

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#14

Post by arham77 » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 9:56 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #9

cornholio wrote: post #4

To play Devil's advocate, keeping the originals isn't just keeping, it means a commitment to maintaining them in an environmentally controlled space, following all fire prevention standards, in an organized fashion. It's easy to see why they would be wanting to cut down those costs to zero, especially due to forthcoming digitization and storage costs. On the other hand, it's also clearly an issue of controlling who h…

And why do they want to keep it? Even old film has a low resolution, let alone magnetic media. Do they expect to be able to better digitalise the same media that will be in worse state (more decay) in a distant future?

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Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#15

Post by zokier » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 9:58 AM UTC

Assuming that the digitization is done diligently, committing to long-term maintenance of the originals would be borderline hoarding.

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#16

Post by ambentzen » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

zokier wrote: post #15

Assuming that the digitization is done diligently, committing to long-term maintenance of the originals would be borderline hoarding.

If that is the case, lets take a picture of the Mona Lisa and shred the damn thing. All that maintenance and security is just a waste, right?

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#17

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 10:49 AM UTC

ambentzen wrote: post #16

zokier wrote: post #15

Assuming that the digitization is done diligently, committing to long-term maintenance of the originals would be borderline hoarding.

If that is the case, lets take a picture of the Mona Lisa and shred the damn thing. All that maintenance and security is just a waste, right?

I don't think that's really the same thing. The Mona Lisa was painted directly by the creator's hand and there is value in maintaining the physical structure of the painting because there is something there beyond a physical image.

In a video the media - the original film - is already just a copy of the original performance. Unless you are interested in the history of the physical media for it's own sake because it's unusual in some way I don't think it's the same thing. Is the media even the original negative that was in the studio? I don't think so.

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#18

Post by wazoox » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #9

cornholio wrote: post #4

To play Devil's advocate, keeping the originals isn't just keeping, it means a commitment to maintaining them in an environmentally controlled space, following all fire prevention standards, in an organized fashion. It's easy to see why they would be wanting to cut down those costs to zero, especially due to forthcoming digitization and storage costs. On the other hand, it's also clearly an issue of controlling who h…

And why do they want to keep it? Even old film has a low resolution, let alone magnetic media. Do they expect to be able to better digitalise the same media that will be in worse state (more decay) in a distant future?

Two examples from France: in 1998 AFP digitized the World Cup 98 pictures. In 800x600... Now they simply have no easy access to their '98 archive. From 1999 on, INA (French national archives) digitized videos in MPEG2 8mb/s 4:2:2 @MPML. That was supposedly "good enough" in comparison with the old media it came from (and was an admitted standard for archives worldwide back then). Actually, it was the only not unreasonably expensive solution, but in retrospect the quality quickly was deemed completely unusable and everything had to be digitized again in the past few years.

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#19

Post by frou_dh » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

ambentzen wrote: post #16

zokier wrote: post #15

Assuming that the digitization is done diligently, committing to long-term maintenance of the originals would be borderline hoarding.

If that is the case, lets take a picture of the Mona Lisa and shred the damn thing. All that maintenance and security is just a waste, right?

The equipment to "play" original paintings is ubiquitous, i.e. eyeballs.

Re: CBC is destroying its broadcast archives after they’re digitized

#20

Post by CapacitorSet » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

8note wrote: post #6

I'm sure somebody would buy at least some of them if they were on offer

I think there may be license issues, if the archives are not in the public domains. Other than that, yes, they might as well sell them and "recover" some money.