About the Benefit of Conservatism and Canning or Once Again About the Digital Video Archives
By Victor Mazo, Andrey Lodunez, Jury Sokolov

Delusions

Only during the last few years the technologies came up to the level when there appeared the reason to talk about the possibilities of introduction of digital archives into the video and TV production. Due to the novelty of the technologies of the digital video archiving they are not stable yet and arouse numerous delusions and illusions at the developers and users.

The first question that any company that is contemplating whether it should invest the resources into the digital video archives would ask, is simple and plain: "What is the return on investments into the new digital technologies of archiving of the video materials?"

Delusion 1:"If the return on investment is possible at all it won't be substantial."

In fact, the return on investment in the case of investing into the contemporary digital technologies, in the field that we are interested in, equals to 7.8 during the three years (according to the data of the American research corporation GSTICS). It is not in vain that 40% of the European and 50% of the American media and "other" companies declare the intentions to switch completely or partly on the digital technologies of controlling the video cassette recorders during the three years from now. The case when the different regional departments of the marketing service of the global corporation had bought the same video plot for the 30 times is used as a stimulating argument.

The list of the "other" companies is very extensive. In particular, it includes corporations that operate on the global market and the state institutions. This new tendency which is called the New Media Model is regarded in the article Embrace Media or Die, by Michael J. Wolf (see also the other articles of the magazine Worth from March 2001). In the article it is explained why the big corporations ire producers from Hollywood and are forced to become media companies. The reason is that with the switch to the online trade the ways of attracting and retaining customers had changed dramatically. As an example they demonstrate such different companies as Nike, Ford Motors and Charles Schwab and other well-known names from the list Fortune500. And it is absolutely plain that the list of the companies that are interested in the transfer to the digital technologies of video archiving includes funds, libraries, museums, press-services, medical, science and educational organizations where the video is a substantial element of production and a source of information.

Delusion 2:"The exploitation of the archived video materials just slightly benefits the contents and the quality of finished products. Generally speaking, the video and TV production can do without any expensive systems that provide an operative and efficient approach to the amount of the archived materials."

In fact, the authors of the article were the witnesses of the full paralysis of the operation of a television company when the digital archives were out of order due to the technical reason caused by the willingness to cut the resources on the reservation system. The economy was as always meager against the background of the main expenses and those losses that the company may have.

Delusion 3:"First of all the digital archives are 'right hardware' big and fast digital mediums for the storage of the video broadcasting quality. What the today's hardware is, is what the video archives is going to be."

Documentum system interface - segmentation module

At the first glance, the next thought is a paradox: it doesn't matter whether the system with the video material of the broadcasting quality is working at the moment (see delusions 5 and 6), it is important that it is able to work tomorrow when the hardware allows it. It is not on principal on which medium this information will be; anyway the declared fantastic time periods of storage were not checked by anyone. The only thing that is important is that the information must be digital and it is highly desirable not to use some exotic formats and hardware. If the chosen program maintains lots of existing standards, the more chances there are that this technology will have a long life. Then in five or a hundred years there will be an opportunity to move the video data on the new contemporary medium. It is hard to say when are they going to appear and what are they going to be like if it is possible at all. This is the peculiarity of the high-tech. For example, who could ever predict that the InPhase Technologies Company is announcing the new holographic stackers that will allow storing up to 100 GB on the one optic disk. Besides the speed of the reading/writing of the data will achieve 20 MB per second. Theoretically it is possible to store up to terabyte on one disk and to exchange data with the speed 100 MB per second. The stackers will maintain the interface SCSI and Fiber Channel.

Delusion 4:"As a 'right' technology of working with video data there can be chosen any technology, which is presented on the market and the more authoritative the developer is the better is his technology."

In fact, far not all the technologies are universal for operating with various digital video archives. The one technology can be appropriate for the movie archives and absolutely not appropriate for the TV news. On the contrary, useful are the only some technologies if to stick to some natural and reasonable claims to the digital systems of the video archiving. Many of the offered decisions have some artificiality that is characteristic of many computer applications when the programmers are solving the problem how it is convenient for them, but not as it is necessary to be done, and do not bother to study the real production in detail, if it is possible from the side of the developer at all. As a result we have an ill-considered interfaces and logistics, numerous problems of integrating into the TV and video production. Other than that the authoritative producer may easily lead to a dead-end by orienting on the expensive decisions and technologies without prospects. Let's remember how many formats and systems had disappeared forever.

Delusion 5:"The most important in the video digital archives is the video data."

It is obvious that the video archives with no video data have no sense. But also there is no sense in the video archives with very big contents if it has no well-structured system of text or, what is even better, objective description. Such descriptions are usually called metadata. Actually, what is the sense of big amount of videos, if you can't find the one that you need? Metadata are the most important thing of any video archives. Today the input of metadata is a labor-intensive and expensive element of arbitary rule. The standardization of the metadata and the automation of the input is more important task that the expected by everyone increase in the volumes of stackers and the broadcast storm.

Delusion 6:"Technically today there exist all the opportunities to build video archives of broadcasting quality working online and that are the only archives that are necessary to talk about."

Actually, such technical opportunities at reasonable prize do not exist. Nowadays the near-line (robotized conveyor system pared up with the video server) and the far-line (robotized DVD system with the video server) archives may be affordable. If you are reasonably conservative, what is welcomed by the authors of the article, and are expecting the availability of the technologies of operating with video online that there is a sense to stop on the draft version of archives (cassettes on the selves, you can do without an expensive video server), gradually digitalizing your analogue archives in low resolution and transferring your most important materials to the digital storage.

According to that, any archives of the high resolution (on-line, near-line, far-line) that you will have some time late will have to work with the synchronized video archives of low resolution and the general base of the metadata. More than that, the technology of work with the overwhelming part of work was conducted from the video of low resolution and the video of high resolution appeared only on the final stage, which is fair editing. The similar technology for twenty years already has been used in the printing and the page proof of printed editions. Actually, can you imagine and if yes, than are you able to afford the server of high resolution at thousands and thousands hours storage of the video of broadcasting quality? And how about the local network at hundreds of working stations, which have the video of high resolution? Even if you can imagine all that and afford it then there appear a much more important question: what is the sense of all that? Anyway the main amount of time is wasted not on the editing but on the search of the needed material.

Delusion 7:"Today's system of an automatic segmenting and identifying of sequence of video images are reliable enough, and without them the video archives are not productive."

Segmentation module interface of the SmartEncode application

To make long story short it is time to get free of illusions and delusions and with the saving of moderate conservatism to switch to the digital technologies in the case of video archiving. But not to face the new delusions we recommend to follow the typical instructions of the use of the household appliance: "If your TV set (vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, etc) doesn't work, check whether it is switched into the electric mains. If it is and doesn't work call the specialist."

Recommendation

Below there is a list of recommendations and requirements that the modern digital archives should satisfy:

• the system is realized on the technology "client-server". The users have an access to the metadata and video materials in the low resolution for the search, viewing and other manipulations with the video on the work stations;
• the fast reconditioning after the non-regulation situations are foreseen into the system;
• the next opportunities of administration of the system are foreseen: the registration of users and groups; the delimiting of the rights of access to the data and various functions of the system; the control and automation of input and editing of data, because it would be interesting to know who, when and on what grounds had deleted or changed the important information; the efficient monitoring of the user's work (the statistics of the use of archived time later it will help to cache the often used materials); the conducting of the personal and time-based archives and pools is organizing work and sufficiently reduces the searching time;
• the system is based on the standard computer and network equipment under the control of the standard operation systems. This is one of the most important foundations that might help you to protect your future;
• the hierarchal structure of video materials and the metadata: cassette-plot-fragment-shot;
• the friendly interface of customer part of the system is the key moment of the system. The muffled and tough perceiving forms of the customer interface make to work difficult and become the source of mistakes;
• the web-clients. This function is important for the companies that have the developed structure of branches and departments because it provides an access for the remote customers. It allows to organize the sale of video on the Internet channels;
• an opportunity of work with the bar codes of the cassettes is an important function while the operation with the system of automation of the air. Besides it allows automating the process of record and output of the cassettes.

The main functions while the operation with the metadata:

MediaDimension editing interface

• the registration and input of the attributes of the cassettes if it is the main production medium;
• the search of the cassettes according to their attributes;
• the registration of the plots and the appropriate to them temporary codes of cassettes. All the video data not depending from their resolution and format are supplied with the through temporary codes, which are restored during the re-recording of the video data. The shot of the minimum restoration unit and each shot has its unique ID. The through temporary code of the shot is the integrated part of its ID;
• the input of the text and objective attributes of the plot, for example, the cassette number, temporary code, date, producer, author, TV program, general description, geography, time, personnel, etc. An opportunity of the input of additional attributes. The input is hand for a while. With the appearance of the reliable technologies of segmentation and automatic identity of the metadata can be automated to a certain extend;
• the supplementary directory directories of the personnel, geography, authors. Etc. That makes the input of the metadata much easier;
• the search of plots by their attributes. The representation of all the conditions of the search in one special area. The forms that consist of the big amount of fields scattered on the screen are difficult for the customers and cause lots of mistakes;
• the output of the results of the search in the form of the rolling list. They provide the viewing of the list of plots and their description;
• the efficient approach in the conditions of editing of the metadata on the storage of the search. This is an efficient mechanism of the correcting of the mistakes in the metadata.

The main functions while the operation with the video:

MediaDimension searching interface

• the input/digitalizing of videos;
• the controlling of the sources of the video on the stage of digitalizing, for example, videocassette recorders Betacam by the interface RS-422. Automated reading of the temporary code and the temporary code and the automat attachment of it to digitalized video;
• the possibility of the digitalizing of the cassette as a whole and the automatic arranging of the digitalized material on the plot by the description that were made earlier. That allows to unfold an archives stage by stage according to the development of the technology as well as the investing of the financial resources/ To site an example we can start from the text part (only text data base) and to input the video later;
• the viewing of the video on the work places at all stages (search, selection, editing) with reflection of the real time period;
• the task of the key codes in the automatic and hand control. That makes the process of the selection of the material easier;
• the formation of the extract of the video fragments and the description comments and the description comments with the identification of the temporary code of the beginning and the ending of a fragment;
• the beforehand editing of the plot from the selected video fragments and an automatic formation of the Editing Decision List-EDL. That allows to automate the process of fair editing;
• an opportunity of widening of the system for the work with video of high resolution. It is especially important in the news production with the use of the video servers under the control of the automation system.

And more. The most important element, perhaps, is that the system is adapted to the real production. Most of the systems presented on the market are the conduction set from which you can make a system 'up to you', according to the producer's technology recommendation it to put the manufacturing technology and realizing it software on the top of a corner.

Vendors

The digital video archive is a complex decision that unites the software and the hardware of different producers. We don't have the space to characterize each one of the components so we will just list with no aspire to the completeness, producers and their decisions roughly diversifying products into the few categories:

• software - the control of the source of video, coding primary indexation: Convera Screening Room; Front Porch Digital MediaSite; Viragwe VideoLogger;
• software - the control of the video data (search, viewing, selection, before editing): Artesia TEAMS; Avid Media Browse; Documentum/Bulldog 4i DAM; Mediadimensions;
• software - the control of video servers, automating: Harris/Louth; Omnibus;
• software - the control of libraries: Avalon Archive Manager; Managedstorage DIVA;
• video servers: Avid AirSpace; EVS Little Big Server; Leitch VR; Pinnacle MediaStream; Quantel ClipBox; Seachange MediaCluster; Thomson Nextore; UNIX, Windows and Mac OS systems;
• libraries: Ampex DST; Leitch VR DVDRAM; Sony PetaSite; Storagetek.

Formally we can more or less free choose the integration of the different elements of the digital video archives. In practice it is better to stick to the stable alliance, for example, Storage Tek-ManagedStorage-Front Porch Digital or Sea-hanged-Ampex-Avalon. If you want to have an opportunity to choose should ask for the consultation at the companies that develop the software of the automating. As a rule they are knowledgeable and relatively independent from the producers of the hardware.

We don't want to touch on one more elements of the video archives here, which is the coding of video to the formats appropriate for the distribution by the web channels and the mechanism of the distribution itself. It is a wide independent topic. We will just point out that from our point of view the methods of the adapting compression are highly perspective as they allow to keep in the archives. The networks spread the video with the level of quality that can be provided the image of the channel that improves with time by the pumping of the new blocks of the video data.

Introduction

To make the task of the introduction of a video archives into production easier the strictly justified consequence of actions is needed. One of the variations of it is listed below.

The 0 phase. Consulting and projecting. Chose a company as a consultant that has enough knowledge and experience in the introduction of digital video archives but is independent from your future integrator. If you have intentions to automate the archives of high resolution, than as a consultant there may be presented the developers of software on automating that should orient well in the hardware and stay independent from other manufactures.

If you are going to content with the draft archives for a while than you may find a qualified team in Russia . The cost of consulting and projecting is about 10% of the cost of all system and it will save the rest 90% for you.

The 1st phase. Current archives. The starting of digital archives and the working out of the technological process should be started from the current and often used materials and the other materials might be accumulated as the time goes by. The integration of archives in the process of production of all the company in general, needs a sufficient time period.

The 2nd phase. The cassette archives. It is the transfer of the same archives on the cassettes into the digital format. Parallel to that there conducts a digitalizing of the video materials in low resolution. There will be probably needed the increase of the staff of archives and of the amount of work stations (or channels) of digitalizing and gradual rise of the volume of storage. You shouldn't increase the amount of stackers faster than you are able to fill the, because the prices on the stackers diminish rather rapidly. The duration of the phase depends on the volumes of an analogue archives.

The 3rd phase. Web-distribution. This is the coding of video into the formats that are appropriate for the distribution by the web channels and the mechanism of distribution itself. It gives birth to the new channel for the return on investments.

The 4th phase. The distributed archives. It provides the provision of an access t the archives to the remote employees of a company. It is included into the united archives of materials from the remote branches of the company.

The phase that is missing in that list is the education and training of personnel. The only thing that we want to remind is that according to the western standards to the 30% of the cost of a system is spend on the education of personnel.

Economics

Let's get back to our genre, which is money and list some channels of the return on investments into the contemporary video archives, channels that provide 7...8 RIO during the three years.

The sufficient reduction in price of the equipment.

It is enough to compare the cost of the videocassette recorder and the common office computer that is appropriate for the search and viewing of the materials of digital video archives.

The sufficient decrease of the exploitation cost.

According to the statistics the duration of the done video material is ten times shorter that the primary video material. It is understandable what is the loading on the videocassette recorder with the use of the traditional technologies. It is not in vain that the big TV companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year just at the change of the video heads.

Economics effect due to the valuable exploitation of the archived materials.

With the use of the traditional technologies it impossible to find the needed and, in fact, additional information fast, and that means the waste of the financial resources. Digital technology provides the fast and full-scale search of the materials for all the participants of the production process.

The commerce exploitation of the video materials.

During the sale of the video information it is necessary to provide the customer with the opportunity to see and to listen to the product. Contemporary digital technologies provide the access of the remote customers to the video with the opportunities of search and the next viewing of listening of the selected plots. If the introduction of the digital technologies will allow selling at least the small part of the video archives it will sufficiently cover the spendings on the introduction of the new technologies.

To end we want to give a piece of advise that can be found in a big amount of English-speaking articles and web-sites: Commercialize (monetarize, cash-in on) your content.

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