Media Asset Management CASE STUDIES


Mining the archive


The fi rst step in maximising the value of archived media is to digitise it under an asset management system. Adrian Pennington looks at three organisations that have made the leap


European Parliament: plenary sessions are recorded in 18 languages 1 European Parliament


The European Parliament in Stras- bourg has completed a large-scale upgrade and redesign of its video, audio and imaging archive in a bid to be more responsive when handling demands for information and to remain in full control of the Parlia- ment’s media assets. Opened in 1979, but with roots


stretching back to 1952, the Parlia- ment is the directly elected institution of the European Union. To make its work accessible, it has its own audiovisual unit, which provides broad casting services on an internal cable TV network, streams video to the internet, and publishes to FTP servers. The unit also provides transmissions by satellite to news exchange networks and selected television channels.


10 | Broadcast | 6 July 2012


‘Once you hold your content in digital form, in one place and with a consistent metadata structure, your business can be taken


The fi rst part of the project was to


digitise 15,000 hours of archive stored on a variety of formats, from Digital Betacam and Betacam SP tape to ana- logue VT and even vinyl. Encoding into a consistent digital fi le format was done using six Front Porch Digital Samma Solo systems under the man- agement of the company’s DIVArchive management software. The archive’s 35GB database con-


to a new level’ Henrik Nordstrom, Vizrt


tains 65,000 video fi les, held in both high and low resolution. Around 20 new fi les – equivalent to fi ve hours of content – are added daily, origi- nating from more than 40 different types of events within the Parlia- ment building. This is managed using Invenio digital asset management technology from Harris. “The archive handles requests from journalists at


up to 30 external TV stations during the plenary sessions, as well as web requests and requests from research- ers and the Parliament administra- tion,” explains Adelino Pires André, project manager at Belgian systems integrator VideoPromotion. “In one week, up to 80% of requests directed at our department will be demands for original archived content.” Invenio is linked to the Parliament’s


in-house semi-automatic eCarton fl ow system, which, among other things, captures metadata from each microphone used in the plenary chamber. Plenary sessions are recorded in 18 languages and automatically fed into Invenio with a logging applica- tion custom- designed by


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