Digitisation and digital transfer
People and organisations been recording audio and images on a wide range of carriers for over a century already, and our content partners’ archives contain hours of film, video and audio content, which can’t continue to exist in its current form forever.
These carriers degrade physically and can become damaged over time, or the specific playback equipment and knowledge required is no longer available. Sometimes, even just (repeatedly) accessing this content can diminish its quality further. That’s why we run digitisation projects together with our content partners – not just rescue to the content, but also to ensure it can continue to be accessed.
The benefits of grouped digitisation
Digitising on a small scale isn’t just expensive; it also requires specific technical expertise that not all organisations possess. Grouping content together into projects by sectors and organisations means we can gather the necessary expertise and find a suitable digitisation partner for every project if necessary. This ensures better economies of scale and gains in efficiency, as well as higher quality. For audiovisual carriers, we process the most at-risk content first.
We’ve been tackling various carriers in our digitisation projects since 2013. These projects always focus on a specific type of carrier, such as VHS, audio cassettes or wax cylinders. The risks associated with a particular type of carrier, and the quantities stored by our content partners, determine the order we work in. And we always take our partners’ planning and priorities into account. To give you an idea: we’ve already worked with 45 different carrier types in past and current projects.
Stages of digitisation
This type of digitisation requires strict logistical organisation, and that’s why our projects always run through the following stages >
