Fundamentals of AV Preservation - Chapter 2

Section 3: Prioritization for Digitization

After you decide which of your audiovisual assets must be digitized, you must prioritize them. Chances are you may not have the budget, resources, or staffing required to digitize all of your assets at once. Therefore, having a planned order and timeline in mind will be helpful for planning purposes. There are four main issues to address when prioritizing items for digitization: technical needs, cost to digitize, content value, and use value.  These will be discussed in the following sections.

3.1 Technical Needs

Physical audiovisual materials face multiple risk factors that render them partly or completely inaccessible in a relatively short period of time. As discussed in Chapter 1, plastics, metals, dyes, and other chemical materials are inherently unstable and reactive to their environment. The triggers and timeline for chemical degradation vary from format to format as the chemical makeup varies.

In addition, the technological dependencies of audiovisual materials limit the time that materials are accessible. Throughout its 150 year history, audiovisual recording has spanned well over 100 different formats. The majority of these formats are not interoperable and rely on their own proprietary technology for playback. Once a manufacturer discontinues production of a given format, obsolescence begins, leading to the loss of expertise, parts, equipment, and documentation and eventually resulting in inaccessibility of content. Age is not the only factor in obsolescence. Sometimes formats are very long-lived, such as VHS or LP, or they are extremely short-lived, such as MII or DAT. Long-lived formats will stave off obsolescence longer than short-lived ones, but all physical audiovisual formats are at risk of becoming obsolete.

MediaSCORE

In 2015, Indiana University developed and released an application called MediaSCORE,³ which enables a detailed analysis of degradation and obsolescence risk factors for most physical audio and video formats. In order to function properly as a prioritization tool, MediaSCORE’s developers created a prioritization scoring system based, in part, on a format’s risk of obsolescence and degradation. Higher scores indicate a higher level of risk. Lower scores indicate a lower level of risk. Should you choose to use MediaSCORE as a prioritization tool, you will have the opportunity to enter a wide variety of item specific factors, including age, brand, and condition, all of which will have an effect on an item’s level of risk. However, using even the base score alone provides you with a great start on prioritizing your items based on technical needs. 

The following list of audiovisual assets ranked by technical risk was created by considering the format’s MediaSCORE base score as well as professional experience of practitioners in the field. 

 

TABLE 2.1 Prioritization of audiovisual formats based on technical needs

Rank	Format
1	2 inch open reel video
2	Lacquer disc
3	½ inch open reel video
4	MII
5	D1, D3
6	U-matic
7	PCM 1600, 1610, 1630 (U-matic)
8	DAT (DDS)
9	PCM-F1 (VHS, Betamax)
10	D2
11	1 inch open reel video
12	8mm family (video)
13	DTRS/DA-88 (Hi-8)
14	ADAT (VHS)
15	MiniDisc
16	Betamax
17	DV family
18	VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C
19	DVCPro
20	Cylinder
21	Metal disc
22	Wire reel
23	¼ inch open reel audio
24	Microcassette, minicassette
25	Compact cassette
26	8-track
27	Betacam, BetacamSP, BetacamSX
28	Digital Betacam
29	D5
30	HDCAM
31	XDCAM
32	Laser disc
33	CD, CD-R, CD-RW
34	DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW
35	Pressed 78 rpm disc
36	Pressed 45 rpm disc
37	Blu-ray
38	Pressed LP disc
39	Color acetate film
40	Black and white acetate film
41	Color polyester film
42	Black and white polyester film

A few notes on the preceding ranking:

• This list only considers each format’s general level of obsolescence and degradation; it should not be the only factor you use in your institution for prioritization. Content value, use value, and cost to digitize, as well as any item-specific preservation problems will need to be considered as  to well.⁴
  
• This is not a comprehensive list of audiovisual formats. Should you encounter a format in your collection that is not on this list, it was most likely not a widely used format and is likely obsolete. You should rank it higher (i.e. with a lower number) on this list.

• Film is ranked lowest on this list as numbers 39, 40, 41, and 42. Film is on a different degradation and obsolescence trajectory than audio and video formats. If stored under proper conditions,⁵ it will remain viable for years to come. If film is not stored under proper conditions, it should be moved higher in the ranking.

3.2 Content Value

An assessment of an asset’s content value will help you prioritize based on the historical or research importance of the content. Due to budget and timeline constraints, you will probably not be able to digitize everything in your collections before it is no longer viable; therefore, it makes sense to prioritize based on the value of an asset’s content. In many cases, content-based advocacy catches an administrator’s or donor’s attention more than technical needs. However, a prioritization plan should consider both.

Answers to the following questions will help you to prioritize based on content:

1. Is this commercial/published or unique/rare content?
2. Is this content currently under copyright that restricts availability and re-use?
3. Is this duplicate content of other items in the collection?
4. What role does this play in the collection’s origin and in the current research value of the collection? (E.g., Is it production material of less value than the final master?)
5. What is your archive’s role in custodianship? (e.g., long-term preservation or access only?) 
   
   

Based on these questions, unless content value dictates otherwise, a content-oriented prioritization scheme would be outlined as: 

1. Prioritize unique/rare recordings over commercial/published recordings.
2. Prioritize recordings not under copyright over those under copyright.
3. Commercial/published works should be digitized if they are considered to be of continuing research value to the collection. These items may be digitized at a lower resolution if it is determined that:
   a. other institutions or original rights holders are also caring for them,
   b. the content is easily replaceable through other means, or
   c. there is limited value in long-term preservation, but there is more immediate value in exhibition or educational use.
4. Exact or lower quality duplicates, such as published materials or dubs from a master source, should not be digitized. Duplicate content derived from production processes should be prioritized for digitization based upon the research priorities of the collection.

3.3 Use Value

This consideration will be driven primarily by research requests or in support of your institution’s activities such as events, educational use, and web publication. As such, it should be a more strategic consideration used to promote the work of your institution and the depth of its collections. Essentially, use value considers how the content of an asset relates back to the mission of your institution. Here, you will want to ask yourself the following questions:

• Does this content meet my mission?
• Does the content fit within my collecting policy?
• Does this content serve my core audience? 

If you answered yes to these questions, you should treat that asset as a high priority.

3.4 Cost to Digitize

Based on the various technical issues discussed in Section 3.1 Technical Needs, different formats will cost different amounts to digitize. This could be due to the scarcity of playback machines or the rate of chemical degradation of the object. No matter the reason, the result is that it is vastly more costly to digitize one format versus another. For example, digitizing a 2 inch open reel videotape can cost as much as ten times the amount of digitizing a compact cassette.

You will have to take into account all factors--technical issues, content, use value, and cost--to decide if it makes more sense to digitize one 2 inch open reel videotape or 10 compact cassettes. There is no right or wrong answer here, as long as you think through all the factors and decide what is best for your institution.

3.5 Finding a Balance

Prioritization of your institution’s assets for digitization requires a careful balance of technical needs, content value, use value, and cost. No one area should necessarily dominate the decision making process.⁶ How each area is weighed will be unique to your institution.Hold discussions with interested stakeholders to determine a course of action that is right for your institution and collections. That being said, in some ways technical needs are still paramount. The reality is that not all of the audiovisual assets in your collection will be viable more than ten years from now. If there is a chance you will wish to preserve the content of certain formats, regardless of the value of the content, then it is a good idea to digitize those sooner rather than later.

 

Section 4: Conclusion ›