AV Preservation by reto.ch

If it’s not awesome, we don’t do it.

A stencil-coloured print of
Création de la Serpentine by Segundo de Chomón,
Pathé Frères, France 1908
(Courtesy by Österreichisches Filmmuseum, the Austrian Film Museum)

Please note that currently we telework as much as possible, and the easiest way to reach us is by email.

We are a small, highly skilled moving image conservation and restoration facility based in Switzerland. Our team provides worldwide comprehensive services that encompass the whole range of audio-visual preservation, offering Swiss quality at a competitive price. We have a particular commitment to the dissemination of audio-visual conservation and restoration techniques, and we support open-source projects which we believe are beneficial for the archival community. We are actively engaged in a number of relevant national and international professional bodies. We are running the Swiss Film and Video Directory.

Our Services Include

• film digitisation for both preservation and access purposes
• moving image restoration
• files and data transformation, migration and maintenance
• digital archiving service
• consultancy, training and research on audio-visual preservation issues

Training

• Sensor Design and Video Codec Design at “Open Isn’t Enough” (= “No Time to Wait 5”) at Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid in Hilversum, Netherlands, on 8–10 December 2021 [en]
• The MovIm Video Codec in Practice, on 17 December 2021 [en]
• Bash Scripting for Audio-Visual Preservation, webinar hosted by AMIA, on 25 and 27 January and 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17 and 22 February 2022 [en]
• Open-Source Tools and Resources for Audio-Visual Archives at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola in Donostia (San Sebastián), Spain, on 10–13 May 2022 [en]
• Open-Source Tools Workshop at Hochschule der Künste Bern, on 31 Mai – 3 June 2022 [de]
• Laboratory Mistakes at “Counter-Archives” (= “Orphan Film Symposium”) at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada, on 15–18 June 2022 [en]

Patronage of the Arts and the Sciences

• AMIA, the Association of Moving Image Archivists
• FIAF, the International Federation of Film Archives
• IASA, the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives
• SEAPAVAA, the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association
• The No Time to Wait conference

Publications

• Agathe Jarczyk, Reto Kromer, Yves Niederhäuser and David Pfluger:
  • Digitale Archivierung von Film und Video: Grundlagen und Orientierung [de]
  • L’archivage numérique des films et vidéos: fondements et orientations [fr]
  • Digital Archiving of Film and Video: Principles and Guidance [en]
  Version 1.2, Memoriav, Bern 2019
• Reto Kromer: “On the Bright Side of Data Migrations”, in IASA Journal, n. 49 (December 2018)
• Reto Kromer: “Matroska and FFV1: One File Format for Film and Video Archiving?”, in Journal of Film Preservation, n. 96 (April 2017)

Tweets

2021-12-06