Rapid Digitization of 55,000 Hours of the Australian Parliament Archive is Underway
CANBERRA, AU – August 23, 2010 – DAMsmart (www.damsmart.com.au), the recognized source of automated content digitization and migration in Australia and New Zealand, has recently broken ground on the extensive job of digitizing and preserving 55,000 hours of the Australian Parliament’s original video recordings in 12 months.
As one of the largest outsourced video digitization projects ever undertaken, DAMsmart has enlisted XenData® (www.xendata.com), the leading provider of digital video archive solutions to the media and entertainment industry, to create managed archive systems uniquely designed to address the mass digitization of the Australian Parliament’s archives in a short span of time.
Specifically, DAMsmart and XenData are accomplishing this project by configuring an IBM TS3310 LTO tape library, partitioned into two logical libraries. To maximize throughput, two IBM servers are being used, each attached to the tape library with each server attached to a separate logical library. XenData X64 Edition software is running on each of the IBM servers, creating two digital video archiving systems that work in parallel. Each of the digital video archive systems uses XenData’s replication capability to write to two tapes simultaneously, producing duplicate LTO tapes for data protection purposes.
Combined with XenData’s non-proprietary, open standard file format, DAMsmart is giving the Australian Parliament the flexibility to restore and future-proof all formats from original tape. To date, Parliamentary proceedings have been recorded on a range of formats including D2, Betacam SX and S-VHS. Comissioned by the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), providers of broadcasting services to the Australian Parliament, this project will serve as the basis for future expanded access to the archive collection through the web.
“We’re pleased to be tasked with preserving the Australian Parliament’s videotape archive for generations to come, eliminating the risk of maintaining big physical media archives,” states Joe Kelly, co-founder of DAMsmart. “Our partnership with XenData ensures us immediate ease of use, ease of management and reliability and enables us to deliver on the DPS’ requirements quickly and cost-effectively.”
“It’s a great opportunity to be working with DAMsmart on this impressive project for Australia’s DPS,” said Dr. Phil Story, CEO and co-founder of XenData. “We’re excited to collaborate with DAMsmart to deliver an intuitive archive solution which delivers high speed archiving to LTO tape and future-proofs file access by using the open standard tar format.”
About DAMsmart:
DAMsmart is the recognised leader in automated media content digitisation and preservation in Australasia and South East Asia. Through implementation of leading edge technologies, DAMsmart offers advanced, efficient and cost-effective digitisation and preservation for any size or format of media collection. DAMsmart has been chosen for demanding media archive migration projects by government agencies, media companies, broadcasters, museums, galleries and libraries. http://www.damsmart.com.au.
About XenData:
XenData is a leading provider of digital video archiving solutions tailored specifically to serve the media and entertainment industry. XenData systems and software deliver the high-performance and functionality required to meet today and tomorrow’s demanding digital video applications. XenData software is build on industry standards, providing a standard file system interface and archiving to data tape using the POSIX tar format. TV stations, media service providers, post production organizations and global broadcasters using XenData standards based approach are able to benefit from significant cost-savings, ease of integration with other standards-based systems as well as long-term assured access to their video files. With over 300 digital video archive installations worldwide, XenData is trusted by some of the largest broadcasters and networks including the BBC, Televisa and Warner Brothers.
