AV Artifact Atlas: Cultivating a Living Glossary for Audiovisual Errors #AVAAtlas Kristin MacDonough | Washington D.C. | SAA 2014 Research Forum avaa.bavc.org

Audiovisual artifact Atlas, an online resource for the identification and diagnosis of of errors and anomalies found when digitizing av materials. AV Artifact Atlas: Cultivating a Living Glossary for Audiovisual Errors #AVAAtlas Kristin MacDonough | Washington D.C. | SAA 2014 avaa.bavc.org

Media preservation involves digitization. The Need Media preservation involves digitization. Digitization can reveal or introduce signal imperfection. Imperfections can be difficult to identify and describe. Some imperfections can be fixed; others cannot. For some background Context for the atlas is based on this set facts, these are well known to those already working with av materials and digitization. Last two are most important and give meaning to the atlas – When we come across an anom. What are we looking at? what caused it? Bimportantly --- what can be fixed? #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

National Archives and Records Administration Stanford University New York University National Archives and Records Administration the creators from these orgs. recognized the need for a common resource. As they developed their av digitization programs, wanted to start to be very rigorous about QC. Given lack of info resources easily accessible, turning to each other and colleagues to compare notes and examples In doing so they Realized they had enough to start building an open resource for sharing what they had learned and `the opportunity to reach out to others across fields Media Preservation workers lack the information resources to support Quality Control processes in digitization workflows. #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas An wiki was born they reached out to BAVC and asked them to host Stanford Media Pres Lab – Hannah and her team, started to build out content from their collections NYU also contributed examples Initial purposes of the atlas was to Facilitate communications between vendors and clients Useful for students, institutions that are growing programsto deal with this material #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas Table of Contents showing some of the entries - launched with about 60 entries across the 4 categories. We now have nearly 80 artifacts identified Simple tool – wanted to produce something early, that they would add it to going forward. Get others to engage as soon as possible to: - add and improve content - shape its look and functionality #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

Quality Control Tools for Video Preservation The Need: Time! Transfer tape recordings to digital file formats, meticulously making and documenting adjustments along the way Review, in-full, potentially corrupt files in search of problems Analyze and identify problems, determine their source Develop potential solutions, test them, and apply them to areas of degradation Quality Control Tools for Video Preservation Initially bavc was only hosting the wiki,, Moriah Ulinskas then Director of the preservaiton department at BAVC cam eup with the idea to growthe atlas by incorporating it into another bavc project. QC tools- a ninitiative to develop open source software to report on and document video signal loss and to help identify errors both inherent to the orginal media or resulting from the transfer to digital. BAVC partnered with independent consultant Dave rice to develop this software. SLIDE working with a vendor is a time consuming process- prioritizing materials, selecting the right vendor then working out your needs in respect to what the vendor can offer. The part many stewards tend to brush through is the QC process. – reviewing an hour of video can take at least an hour and a half of your life. Needless to say, ideally you will only want to do this once for each video. AVAA integrated into QCTOOLS proposal Funded by the NEH 2013-2014 #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas Will chart errors or sudden disruptions in the image Rather than watch hours upon hours of content #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas examples of some of the filters that can be used,, another way of showing errors. This project is still in development as well. You can find more information about it on the AVAA site and BAVC site. #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas Although atlas was already being developed, what it provided the qc tools project with is a platform for dissemination #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

Last spring - One of my first steps was to review existing glossaries a recently released book compendium of image errors in analog video, the bavc glossary, and compare to the existing AVAA.

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas Result ;New terms have been added to the Atlas and many existing definitions have already been refined and enhanced. As I mentioned the number of identified artifacts have increased from 60 to about 80, about 40 of those are for analog video. Is there redundancy: yes. But there is also the fact that some errors may look similar but have different causes, or the one issue may have different visual representations. #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

avaa.bavc.org #AVAAtlas Example- Describes What it often looks like, what causes it, visual examples and alternative dexcriptors often used. #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

#AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

#AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org Not just analog video! Also audio, I know many of you work with oral histories, and you may find this useful when reviewing your materials. -student at UT #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

Resource page Starting a digitization project? #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

Also, We’re been tracking analytics and we starting to conduct in depth reviews of the results. Such as what pages people are going to most and staying on the longest. Or what search terms people are using to arrive at the site. ASHLEY furniture?!

Contributors (2011-2014) ..and growing! Michael Angeletti, Stanford Media Preservation Lab Jenny Mullins, Dartmouth College Melitte Buchman, New York University Jean-Hugues Chenot, Institut National de l'Audiovisuel Nathan Coy, Stanford Media Preservation Lab Rebecca Fraimow, Dance Heritage Coalition Hannah Frost, Stanford Media Preservation Lab Richard L. Hess, Independent Contractor Agathe Jarczyk Ludovic Jolivet, Dance Heritage Coalition Kristin Lipska, California Audiovisual Preservation Project Emily Perkins, Museum of Fine Arts - Houston Joanna Phillips, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Erik Piil, Anthology Film Archives Jim Sam, Hoover Library and Archives C. Park Seward, The Transfer Lab at Video Park Geoff Willard, Stanford Media Preservation Lab ..and growing! Current list active contributors to the atlas and qc tools project Continues to grow evertime it’s shared, it grows, users make it useful and relevant. #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

Continuing the Community Effort: Current and Upcoming Continue collecting artifact samples and enhancing descriptions (SMPL, Dance Heritage Coalition) Incorporate QC Tools software and graphs with AVAA Develop the Resource Library with information about analog video, digitization, and preservation Create landing pages Enhance descriptions, category tags, still images, etc. Develop Discussion Pages to help refine definitions and solutions Reach out to different user groups (archivists, librarians, conservators, subject experts, digitization specialists, teachers, students, etc.) for feedback on user experience (content clarity, layout, features, searching, recommendations, etc.) 2014: Awarded Knight Foundation Prototype Fund to develop QC Capture, open-source a video digitization software Where is it headed? This is more than research into video technology; it also provides information about how a community creates and develops a --- vocabulary. We’re enhancing descriptions but we’re also reaching out to more fields and more people. Technical jargon can be very convoluted. -overall we will be enhancing the site, including more examples from the QC tools software, expanding the resource library Recently, BAVC was received a Knight Foundation award to develop QC Capture an open source capture software for video digitization if anyone is interested in working on the atlas or providing feedback there is always room to be involved #AVAAtlas avaa.bavc.org

Visit the website at avaa.bavc.org kristin@bavc.org or avaa@bavc.org #AVAAtlas | @BAVCPreserve | @super_kmac