Through prototyping, the capture tool created in QCTools treats the tape as a stream of data that it evaluates in real time. From cavorting with a group of testers and from participating in Hack Day at the 2014 Association of Moving Image Archivists conference in Savannah, Georgia, our team accrued further insight into how a capture-savvy QC Tools might work: In the spirit of knowledge-sharing and collaboration that exists amongst AV preservation community, the development team behind QCTools looked to preservationists and archivists for feedback in order to take their needs into consideration and to design a tool specifically for them. With support from the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund, the primary goal of this project is to position QCTools as a free, open source video capture tool designed for archivists and preservationists.Īs a tape capture tool, QCTools will feature a set of real-time analysis options previously unavailable to those who digitize magnetic media. This is precisely the rationale behind attempting to integrate capture functionality into BAVC’s QCTools. What if there existed a preservation standard software that was not only supported by modern computers, but one that would allow archivists the ability to perform quality control and check for video errors concurrently, as they captured? If there’s one thing we can’t afford to lose in the field of audiovisual preservation, it’s time. All you can do is take note of the timecode where you thought you noticed the error and go back to that moment later, with fingers crossed.Ĭhances are that if you’ve digitized media you’ve experienced both of these situations and have lost a fair amount of precious time re-doing work and/or navigating through the depths of technical support forums. There’s no way for you to check, however, while the video is being captured. In your peripheral vision, you notice something flit across the frame. ![]() You’re sitting at your computer, watching your content play in real time as you capture a videotape through a particular software. As a result, you fall back on old standbys only to discover that old software doesn’t play nicely with new hardware and you don’t know where to turn. You soon discover, however, that your out-of-the-box capture software doesn’t meet preservation standards. You’ve just purchased an expensive new computer with all the bells and whistles including professional capture software. We are glad to talk about the subject further with anyone interested.If you’ve digitized magnetic videotape before, perhaps you’ve experienced the following situation: The aim will be to increase confidence in our results without wasting time running after false positives that result from poorly chosen thresholds on any of the characteristics we track. So with the support of others in the AV Preservation community, we’ll be training our minds on how to interpret QCTools data, and subsequently creating some objective QC standards for our work. And the fact that they quantify what can otherwise be very qualitative judgements is also useful. So software packages like QCTools, able to automate the identification of a broad range of potential issues throughout a file, are very useful. We only routinely check beginning, middle, and end of files for obvious problems. But it is not practical for us to listen to and/or watch every piece of program material in its entirely. ![]() ![]() Batch processing promises to help us take advantage of this tool set in our regular workflow, instead of the very selective use we’ve made to date, when some video artifact in a file seems rather suspicious and/or unfamiliar to us.įor folks who are unfamiliar with our work, we use our trained eyes and ears everyday, as a form of quality assurance, in identifying potential issues with analog-to-digital transfers of the audio-visual media that we process. On day two, we got familiar with new batch file processing capabilities and discussed what other features we’d like to see. On day one, the group reviewed current QCTools features and operation. I was grateful Cornell granted me the time to participate. In late April, the group of approximately 15 people, all doing similar kinds of work, came together from all over the country, using grant money secured by BAVC. Olin Library’s Audio-Visual Preservation Lab (AVPL) was honored with an invitation to participate in a focus group aimed at identifying potential improvements to QCTools, a well respected suite of video quality control tools developed under the umbrella of the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) in San Francisco’s Mission District. AV Preservation Lab participates in Video QC software focus group
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