The document summarizes the British Film Institute's (BFI) digital preservation infrastructure, which allows for digitization, preservation, and access to films in their national archive. It describes their digitization process including film scanning, sound scanning, and post-production workstations. It then outlines their digital preservation infrastructure, including a secure data center, instant access storage, long-term archive storage on tape, and a media asset management system for ingesting and providing access to digitized films. The infrastructure provides automated digitization and preservation of the BFI's film collection while ensuring access for staff.

1. FIAT/IFTA
World
Conference
2016 - Warsaw
Digital preservation
infrastructure: providing
new opportunities for
preservation, access
and beyond…
Charles Fairall
Head of Conservation
British Film Institute
Unlocking Film Heritage

2. Digital Past
Over a decade of
digital workflow at
the BFI National
Archive
• Audio came first
• Digital Operations
team created
• Arriscan film scanner
• For-A LTO-5 recorders
• LTO tapes stored on
vault shelves

3. Digital Present
In-house, end-to-end
capability for digitisation of
BFI National Archive
collections

4. Film scanner
• High volume, high fidelity
scanning (2k)
• Safe handling of delicate film
• Continuous motion (not single
frame)
• Inherent image stabilisation
• Compliments the Archive’s
existing digitisation tools
Digital
Capability
Film image

5. Digital
Capability
Sound
Soundtrack scanner
ProTools
• Capture high quality digital
image of the soundtrack
• Uses image processing and
software to remove defects –
dust, scratches
• Generate digital audio file
• Digitise sound directly from
positive and negative film
• ProTools for editing and
restoration

6. Digital
Capability
Post-production
Grading, editing and finishing
workstations
• Grading software with grain
management
• Precision panel provides
intuitive user interface
• Reference picture monitor
guarantees image fidelity
• Clipster creates files for Digital
Cinema distribution, BFI Player
and range of file types

7. Digital
Preservation
Infrastructure
New technology to
digitise, ingest, preserve and
provide access to
BFI National Archive
digital collections

8. How did we do it?
• Peer review
• Consultation with
colleagues and partners
• Requirements Document
• Competitive Dialogue
Procurement
Digital
Preservation
Infrastructure

9. Digital
Preservation
Infrastructure
Environment
Data centre
• Secure access control
• Gas fire suppression
• Cooling and aircon
• Uninterruptible power
supply (UPS)
• 10Gb fibre connectivity

10. Digital
Preservation
Infrastructure
Access storage
Instant access storage for viewing
copies, and work-in-progress
• Instant playback of viewing
copies in web browser
• Safe storage of work-in-
progress for digital operations
• Hugely scaleable (700TB now,
but scales to 20PB)
• High performance and speed
(200 GB per second)

11. Digital
Preservation
Infrastructure
Long-term
archive data
storage
• Two copies of preservation
files, geographically separated
• Open and enterprise tape
types to achieve both archival
resilience and performance
• Eliminates manual handling
• High capacity, low cost-per-GB
• Fast, durable, robust
• Self-migrating to successive
tape formats in roadmap

12. Digital
Preservation
Infrastructure
Ingest + access
Media Asset Management (MAM)
• Give access to viewing copies
in web browser to BFI staff
• Integrate with CID
• Ingest from DPI workstations
• Automatically create viewing
copies and thumbnails
• Permissions based access to
master preservation files

13. Transforming
the Archive
Charles Fairall
Head of Conservation
BFI National Archive
Unlocking Film Heritage