The Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, the central repository for all French radio and TV audiovisual archives, has chosen EVS-OpenCube ingest servers to digitize its video archives in MXF Jpeg2000, writes David Fox.
Since launching its massive audiovisual asset preservation and digitisation plan in 1999, INA has generated more than 300,000 Digital Betacam tapes, which it has now decided to migrate to files. INA also plans to archive all of its new SD and HD inputs as files.
It wanted to use a codec that would provide both quality and integrity for long-term preservation, and to choose a master file format that would allow flawless transcoding when these contents were delivered in different formats for different uses and users. After careful study, INA decided on the MXF Jpeg2000 file format.
It then selected EVS-OpenCube as it had both the expertise and comprehensive solutions required for MXF Jpeg2000 ingesting and file mastering, whether lossy or mathematically lossless. The Linux-based EVS-OpenCube HD/SD video servers are widely used in the US, notably by 20th Century Fox for daily production and by Iron Mountain for JFK archive migration.
INA is implementing several EVS-OpenCube units in a comprehensive, industrialized digitization process. The ingest servers are connected to several Flexicart Libraries and generate MXF Jpeg2000 files in SD and HD from “visually lossless” to “lossless”, with different encoding qualities depending on the content’s use.
INA will carry out its digitization operation over the next several years, and the MXF files produced by the ingest server will comply with MXF SMPTE standards and offer seamless interoperability with third-party systems, such as quality control and transcoding tools.
“This is a strategic project for INA. We have to partner with companies that provide solid technologies as well as long term sustainability as this project will continue to gain momentum in the coming years,” said Jean Varra, Head of the INA Archive Department. “EVS has an exceptionally strong track record and offers us proven solutions and the knowhow we need to carry out the project successfully”.
EVS has been part of numerous audiovisual migration projects in 2011, notably for Antena 3 (Spain), SNRT (Morocco) and GTRF (Russia).
