Open-Source Tools and Resources for Audio-Visual Archives

At Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola in Donostia (San Sebastián), Spain, from 10 to 13 May 2022.

Table of Contents

• Abstract
• Lectures
• Free and Open-Source Software
• Bibliography

Abstract

The class begins with an introduction on file formats. Building on this the students will practically explore free and open-source software, such as:

• FFmpeg for in-depth file transformation
• MediaInfo for technical metadata extraction
• QCTools for quality control
• AEO-Light for sound extraction from optical tracks and
• DCP-o-matic for DCP encoding and file extraction

as well as various media players.

Resources on infrastructure and workflows for film and video digitisation will be presented and discussed, taking account especially of solutions which can be implemented in difficult environments at little expense and of solutions which can be automatised.

An overview on data preservation and migration, as well as disaster planning and recovery, will round off this class.

Lectures

Tuesday 10 May

• Organisation (PDF, 141 KB, MD5 = 59c6f696e1250557f9f03ecbff5dca12)
• On Audio-Visual File Formats, PDF, 5.2 MB (MD5 = 5a5b00fd5aed725acee60567234f6b14)
• A Quiz on Audio-Visual File Formats (PDF, 63 KB, MD5 = 87a82c5b3c61831f891fb91da765555b)
• Used commands #1

Wednesday 11 May

• An Introduction to FFmpeg, PDF, 847 KB (MD5 = a9a7ae916ab989f12a842b65f684a9c1)
• Used commands #2

• Exercise files #1 (ZIP, 1.06 GB, MD5 = c2fdc0fc9290ebaa4757d69fadf3f38c)

• Image sequence into ProRes
• Video into H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC
• Image sequence into H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC
• Split screen
• Delta file (difference file)

Thursday 12 May

• Data Storage and Data Migration, PDF, 3.3 MB (MD5 = fc82404a652e8ae2b5bcf50d74ceeead)
• Open-Source Tools and Resources, PDF, 145 KB (MD5 = 3918fe7b3a20e4f0c3ff61018802d0b2)
• Before the Restoration, PDF, 3.5 MB (MD5 = 24110520439f03815cd26171d05960e9)

• Exercise files #2 (ZIP, 1.38 GB, MD5 = d933ed0d2079fa5cfec0009bb2e6c032)

Friday 13 May

• Analogue and Digital Preservation in Difficult Times, PDF, 3.3 MB (MD5 = feaa10e9901e5f8e4d410fe42d7c2404)
• Create DCPs with DCP-o-matic
• Used commands #3
• Answers to the Quiz on Audio-Visual File Formats (PDF, 51 KB, MD5 = a0dccfe0bd4f00da76749c3a7d6f1f7f)

Free and Open-Source Software

Media Players

• VLC media player (GUI)
• mpv (CLI and GUI)
• ffplay (CLI)

Metadata Extraction

• MediaInfo (GUI and CLI)
• ffprobe (CLI)

File Transformations

• ffmpeg (CLI)
• FFmpeg Cookbook for Archivists
• ffmprovisr (can be installed locally on your computers)
• FFCommand Engine (GUI for macOS and Windows)

Quality Control

• QCTools (GUI) and qcli (CLI)
• QCTools Documentation
• AV Artifact Atlas
• QCTools Cheat Sheet
• Seattle Municipal Archives User Guide, 2015 (download the PDF)

Policy Implementer, Checker, Reporter and Fixer

• MediaConch (GUI and CLI)

Optical Sound Extraction

• AEO-Light (GUI)
• AEO-Light “Manual” (PDF, 5.7 MB)

DCP Encoder (and Player)

• DCP-o-matic (GUI and CLI)
• Carl Hetherington: DCP-o-matic users’ manual (available also as PDF, 2.1 MB)

The Missing Piece of Software

• RAWcooked (CLI)

Automation

• Reto Kromer: Bash Scripts for Audio-Visual Preservation (a set of Bash scripts)
• IFI Irish Film Archive [Kieran O’Leary et al.]: IFIscripts (a set of Python scripts)

Bibliography

• Nicole Martin: What Is a Digital File?, 2020-09-14
• Agathe Jarczyk, Reto Kromer, Yves Niederhäuser and David Pfluger: Digital Archiving of Film and Video: Principles and Guidance, Version 1.2, Memoriav, Bern 2019
• Nicole Martin: Why Use the Command Line for Digital Archiving and Preservation?, 2020-06-21
• Ashley Blewer: Command Line Interface
• Dave Rice and Annie Schweikert: Microservices in Audiovisual Archives, International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) Journal, n. 50 (August 2019), S. 53–75
• Joanna White: Open source scripts from the BFI National Archive, 2021-05-25
• Joanna White: Using bash scripts to automate #AVpres workflows, 2020-03-31
• 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)
• Kieran O’Leary: Introduction to FFV1 and Matroska for Film Scans, 2016-10-07
• Shira Peltzman: Unlocking the DCP: Evaluating the Risks, Preservation, and Long-Term Management of Digital Cinema Packages in Audiovisual Archives, MIAP Thesis, New York University, 2013 (PDF, 1.4 MB)
• FFmpeg Artschool: An AMIA Workshop, 2020
• vacingfang: FFmpeg Audio Filter Gallery

2023-05-26