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Capture of analogue video for archives
Hello
I am currently in charge of digitizing video for a smallish archive. Our collection is not large enough to justify the purchase of a Samma or Cube for the capture process. My Question, is there any video archivist among this group that is using Avid Media Composer for the archiving video? It looks like Media Composer can capture analogue video as uncompressed MXF MJ2K, which would be a perfect solution for a small archive. Is there any issues with this approach? I’ve downloaded the trial version, and seems to work with my Mac and Aja card. I’m still uncomfortable with the workflow, and concerned of any propriety obstacles using Avid. Anyone out there using Avid Media Composer for archival work?
Cheers,
RR -
2 Replies
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Capturing uncompressed is the best bet but J2K (which isn’t uncompressed) is what a lot of Archives are using (it offers 2:1 compression lossless)
However the Avid media files, depite being in an MXF wrapper, aren’t what you want for storing the content as it’s wrapped as Avid media files so of little use to anything else.
MXF is a better wrapper than QT but you really need a more generic MXF implementation.Also I’d pay close attention to the analogue playback side of things as this is more likely to degenerate the content than anything you can get wrong on the digital side.
Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US -
Thanks Pat for the response. Yes, you are right MJ2K is compressed. I meant to say Media Composer has the option of both uncompressed and MJ2K MXF. My bad, but you gave me the information I needed. The MXF wrapper in Media Composer is an Avid media file, and wouldn’t work for an archive. Cool. Thanks for that…too bad, almost a perfect solution for a small archive. 10 bit 4:2:2 uncompressed it is. Cheers!
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