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by
Sara Natalie Fuchs
2005
The Preservation of Digital
Video: A Case Study
by
Sara Natalie Fuchs
Master’s Report
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Master of Science in Information Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
May 2005
The Preservation of Digital
Video: A Case Study
Approved by Supervising Committee:
iv
Abstract
The Preservation of Digital Video:
A Case Study
Sara Natalie Fuchs, MSIS
The University of Texas at Austin, 2005
Supervisor: Patricia Galloway
The preservation of content is not a new problem. Archivists have been struggling
with this problem for many years, struggling to maintain access to formats that are
volatile and facing obsolescence. However, with the sheer amount of content that is
created digitally, new problems are arising, and at a much faster rate. One example can be
seen in the world of moving images, where more and more content is created digitally.
By examining a case study of a documentary film currently in production, the problems
inherent in preserving digital moving images are examined, and solutions are proposed.
v
Table of Contents
ANALOG VS. DIGITAL 1
The History of Traditional Film Preservation..........................................................1
The Rise of Digital Video ........................................................................................3
Digital File Preservation ..........................................................................................4 The Open Archival Information System.........................................................5
Initiatives in Preserving Digital Video ....................................................................6 The Universal Preservation Format ................................................................6 Preserving Digital Public Television Project..................................................8
Metadata Required for Digital Film Preservation..................................................10 Overview.......................................................................................................10 Dublin Core...................................................................................................11 Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard...........................................12 Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language..........................................12 MPEG-7 & MPEG-21...................................................................................13
Identification of File Formats ................................................................................13 Digital Formats Web Site..............................................................................14 Digital Video File Formats ...........................................................................15
vi
CASE STUDY: A TEXAS CORRECTION 17
About the Project ...................................................................................................17
Formats Involved in Production of Film................................................................19
Why Were These Formats Chosen?.......................................................................22
Metadata Generation..............................................................................................22
Preservation of Formats .........................................................................................25
Future Online Access.............................................................................................27 The Moving Image Archive..........................................................................27 The Open Video Project................................................................................29
CONCLUSION 30
References..............................................................................................................32
Vita .......................................................................................................................35
1
ANALOG VS. DIGITAL
The preservation of content is not a new problem. Archivists have been struggling
with this problem for many years, struggling to maintain access to formats that are
volatile and facing obsolescence. However, with the sheer amount of content that is
created digitally, new problems are arising, and at a much faster rate. One example can be
seen in the world of moving images. For years, films have been created with traditional
film stock, a volatile format, certainly, but one that is still being used widely, and has a
great deal of support. Recently, though, more and more moving image content is created
digitally, which means that archivists are no longer dealing with an artifact, but are now
in charge of “stewardship of disembodied digital information” (Besser, 2001). With
digital video files, there are many unknowns. How long will this format last? What is the
best way to preserve it? How do you preserve something that you can’t even see? While
traditional film preservation is about conservation (preserving the film stock), digital
video preservation is much more akin to asset management—preserving not only the
content, but also the information related to the content (the metadata). There are
standards and best practices associated with film preservation, but digital video is still a
relatively new format. Due to its ease of use and low cost, digital video production has
grown in popularity, but with this ease of use come new challenges and obstacles,
namely, how to access this content in the future.
The History of Traditional Film Preservation
The preservation of moving images is a national topic, and one that has gained
momentum over the past ten years. According to the National Film Preservation
2
Foundation (NFPF), a nonprofit corporation created by the United States Congress and
committed to preserving our nation’s film heritage, less than 20% of feature films in this
country survive in their complete form in archives, and only half of American features
produced before 1950 still survive (National Film Preservation Foundation web site). In
August of 1994, the Library of Congress completed a report entitled “Redefining Film
Preservation: A National Plan,” with the goal of improving the state of American film
preservation, as “motion pictures of all types are deteriorating faster than archives can
preserve them” (Redefining Film Preservation, 1994) through nitrate deterioration, color
fading, and vinegar syndrome. The plan recommends storage procedures (low
temperature/low humidity), how to provide access to these films, how to develop
partnerships with private organizations, and how to secure funds for film preservation.
Film preservation as it has been traditionally defined emphasizes conservation
(protecting the original artifact and slowing decay), duplication (making surrogate
copies), restoration (enhancing the film), and access (sharing the film with the public).
Motion picture film is a known format, with a long history; it is over a century old and is
still being used. Because of this, there are industry standards for motion picture film,
namely, 35mm, 16mm, and 8mm. Originally, film was made of nitrocellulose (nitrate
film), a highly flammable material. A more stable format, acetate-based film, was
introduced to the professional community in 1954 (for 35mm) (The Film Preservation
Guide, 2004). Film made in the last thirty years can be expected to last at least one
hundred years (Wright, 2004). When a film print is in danger of decaying, the solution is
simple: make another film print. Although this is a costly process — it costs about
$32,000 to make a new master and viewing print of a seven-reel, black and white silent
feature, and even more to make a preservation copy of a sound feature (National Film
Preservation Foundation web site) — it is the only accepted method of preservation.
3
There is a great deal of training and support for those entering the field of film
archiving. Programs are in place to train aspiring moving image archivists, such as the
George Eastman House School of Film Preservation (established in 1996), the Moving
Image Archive Studies Program at UCLA (established in 2001), and the Moving Image
Archiving and Preservation program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (established in
2002) (de Stefano, 2003). With more trained moving image archivists entering the
workforce, it is possible that more standard practices will be incorporated into the field of
moving image archives, both traditionally and digitally.
The Rise of Digital Video
Due to its ease of use and low cost, digital video (DV) is increasingly being used
by low-budget moviemakers. However, the trend is beginning to catch on in Hollywood,
as well. Eighty-five percent of the shots in The Matrix were digital, and almost all of Star
Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace was shot digitally; both films were released in
1999. The third segment of the second Star Wars trilogy—The Revenge of the Sith—was
shot entirely on a digital format (Chute, 2000); this film will be released on May 19,
2005. Robert Rodriquez, an Austin-based filmmaker, has often extolled the virtues of
shooting digitally, and bypassing celluloid altogether. His films Once Upon a Time in
Mexico and Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams were both shot using High Definition
24p digital video (Savlov, 2002). To keep pace with this trend, more and more theaters
are being outfitted to project films digitally. As technology improves and venues develop
to project films created digitally, traditional motion picture film may be a thing of the
past (Besser, 2001).
4
The Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC is a joint venture between Disney, Fox,
MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal, and Warner Bros. Studios to
develop an open architecture for digital cinema systems in movie theaters. In March,
2005, the DCI released Version 5.1 of the voluntary DCI Technical Specification,
available to members of the DCI. The goal of these specifications is to ensure a “uniform
and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control” in projecting
digital films (DCI website). This initiative utilizes the Digital Cinema Initiative
Distribution Master (DCDM) format, that bundles video, audio, timed text, subpictures,
metadata, and other elements, for the specific playback of motion pictures in movie
theaters (Digital Formats website).
It’s interesting to note that creating standards in digital projection quality is being
undertaken now, coinciding with the rise of big-budget “Hollywood” pictures that are
made in digital form. It can only be anticipated that preserving digitally-made films will
be the next logical step. For now, though, those charged with maintaining our cultural
heritage—the libraries and archives—are forced to confront this issue.
Digital File Preservation
The problems inherent in preserving films shot digitally are no different than the
problems faced with preserving any sort of digital content. While there is a growing
concern over this issue, there is an appalling lack of standards—the wide range of
formats, most of which are proprietary, means that a different standard would have to
exist for each format. And there is no guarantee that proprietary formats will be
supported into the future. The often proposed solutions of migration (moving a file to a
newer format) and emulation (recreating the original environment of the file) “may prove
5
effective for some types of media, but they are inadequate for handling the intricacies,
interdependencies, and sheer volume” of digital video productions. The ideal solution is
bundling, which is “the process of bonding metadata with content within the same file
format” (Ide, McCarn, Shepard, & Weiss, 2002).
THE OPEN ARCHIVAL INFORMATION SYSTEM
The Open Archival Information System (OAIS), developed by the Consultative
Committee of Space Data Systems (CCSDS), was developed in order to provide a
common terminology and framework for preserving digital objects. Although it does not
specify an implementation, it is designed to be applicable to any archive charged with
preserving digital objects for the long term. The OAIS environment is defined as
consisting of Producers, Management, and Consumers. Producers provide the
information to be preserved, Management is responsible for managing the OAIS archive,
and Consumers are the users who will use the OAIS archive in order to find information.
In order for material to be preserved, it must first be defined. OAIS defines each
submission of information to the archive in terms of an Information Package, consisting
of Content Information (the essence) and the Preservation Description Information
(metadata about the submission). Different Information Packages include the Submission
Information Package (SIP, that sent to the OAIS by the Producer), the Archival
Information Package (AIP, that preserved by the Management), and the Dissemination
Information Package (DIP, that sent to the Consumer upon request). Defining the OAIS
in such specific terms ensures that issues that need to be dealt with in long-term
preservation, such as copyright, access, description, and preservation issues, etc. are
considered at every phase of the ingest, storage, and dissemination process.
The OAIS framework is useful for the preservation of digital moving images,
because it provides not only a common terminology, but permits a valid way of
6
combining, or bundling, all the material that is necessary to preserve the digital object
(namely, the content, and the associated metadata). In 1993, the Committee for Film
Preservation and Public Access presented a statement entitled “Preservation Without
Access Is Pointless,” in which it was argued that, while a national policy to preserve our
motion picture heritage was important, it is equally important to provide access to that
which is preserved. The OAIS framework, by specifying the Dissemination Information
Package, ensures that not only will digital moving images be preserved, but that a way to
share these preserved packages is presented.
Initiatives in Preserving Digital Video
While the OAIS framework provides guidance on creating an information
repository for digital preservation of any digital files, projects specifically related to
digital video preservation have been few and far between. Two such projects are the
Universal Preservation Format project, which, similar to OAIS, provides a framework for
how to package digital video files to ensure future access. The Preserving Digital
Television Project takes this one step further, by developing a digital repository
implementation for digital content produced by public television stations.
THE UNIVERSAL PRESERVATION FORMAT
The idea of a universal preservation format to preserve a wide variety of digital
formats was introduced at the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
Conference in October of 1996. The initiative was later sponsored by the WGBH
Educational Foundation (Shepard & MacCarn, 1998). As a public broadcasting station
and producer of programming for public television, WGBH had firsthand knowledge of
the need for a way to preserve the myriad formats of material being created, including
7
“audio, text, database files, captioning, descriptive video information and the whole
gamut of original digital content produced for the World Wide Web” (Shepard &
MacCarn, 1999). Although most of their older formats had been digitized, addressing the
problems of technological obsolescence with their analog material, WGBH was still
faced with the problem of preserving these newer digital forms, often in various digital
tape formats.
In 1997, WGBH was awarded a grant from the National Historical Publications
and Records Commission of the National Archives to develop a Recommended Practice
for a Universal Preservation Format (UPF). The mission of this project was to thoroughly
analyze the issue of preserving digital video records, to raise awareness, to build a
coalition for a solution to the problem, to develop a Recommended Practice, and to
present the solution to parties in both the profit and non-profit sectors, through
conferences and publishing journal articles. The idea was to develop an understanding
between those who develop the technology (the engineers) and those who are entrusted to
preserve it (the archivists) (Shepard & MacCarn, 1998).
In 1999, WGBH released a publication entitled “The Universal Preservation
Format: A Recommended Practice for Archiving Media and Electronic Records,”
consisting of “Part 1: User Requirements” and “Part 2: Technical Requirements.” Part 1
provides a context for the Universal Preservation Format, which utilizes a wrapper
structure that combines essence (or the data) with metadata in the same container, what
OAIS would call the Archival Information Package (Shepard & MacCarn, 1999). Called
“insightful and ahead of its time” (Fleischhauer, 2003), the UPF is designed to be
independent of both operating systems and physical media, as its metadata contains “the
technical specifications required to build and rebuild appropriate media browsers to
access contained materials throughout time” (Shepard & MacCarn, 1999). The UPF
8
Recommended Practices document also stressed the importance for a unique identifier,
the idea of a “digital Rosetta stone” (instructions for the hardware specifications, saved in
an environment not dependent on platforms), the use of open standard formats for data
types, and establishing digital fixity (or provenance). Part 1 concludes with a call for
“open standards or shared systems designed specifically for long-term digital storage”
(Shepard & MacCarn, 1999).
Part 2 details the technical requirements for the Universal Preservation Format,
which includes both an analog requirement and a digital component. The analog
requirement consists of “a human readable system that describes the content stored on the
physical media,” as well as instructions for a system that can read the content, and how to
access the structure that contains the content. The digital component consists of a
wrapper, the essence (or content), and the metadata. A media compiler would be used to
assemble the essence and metadata components for storage in the UPF, with an emphasis
on automation. It is stressed that the UPF would be an open standard (Shepard &
MacCarn, 1999).
The Universal Preservation Format never progressed beyond recommendations. It
would be five years before a similar project, emphasizing implementation, would be
initiated.
PRESERVING DIGITAL PUBLIC TELEVISION PROJECT
The National Digital Information and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), part of the
Library of Congress, was authorized by Congress in December 2000 to establish a
strategy for the long-term preservation of digital materials. On September 30, 2004,
awards totaling $14.9 million were given to digital preservation projects (Ackerman,
2004). A project dealing with the challenge of preserving digital moving image files was
awarded this grant. “Preserving Digital Public Television: Adopting Standards and
9
Selection Criteria and Defining Structure” is a project partnership between Channel
13/WNET (Educational Broadcasting Corporation), WGBH Educational Foundation, and
New York University, and aims to continue with the recommendations established by the
Universal Preservation Format by developing a solution for preserving digital television
content. Because of the enormous amount of digital video content produced by public
television stations in varying formats, entailing not only the finished product but also the
original raw materials, digital preservation is of primary concern (Interviews with Library
Staff: Carl Fleischhauer, 2005). The project has the following goals:
• To conduct a series of discussions focusing on standards, metadata, and best
practices.
• To inventory at-risk materials housed at WNET and WGBH, with particular
emphasis on signature series, such as NATURE, American Masters, Religion &
Ethics Weekly, American Experience, and NOVA.
• To complete and test the design for the Universal Preservation Format.
• To outline an administrative structure for creating a long-term digital public
television repository.
• To design and test a model repository (Preserving Digital Public Television:
Adopting Standards and Selection Criteria and Defining Structure Project
Proposal).
This project raises a number of interesting questions regarding the field of digital
video preservation, and, hopefully, can begin to provide some answers. Among these are
the following:
• The lack of standards and best practices for digital video preservation;
• Identifying the best file formats and encodings for digital video preservation;
• The best management system for these types of digital assets;
10
• How to manage the final product, other versions, and raw materials; and
• Identifying and preserving corollary material (such as web sites and DVDs).
It will be interesting to see what develops regarding this project over the next few
years, and how it will affect video projects that do not have access to the same resources
and finances as the Library of Congress.
Metadata Required for Digital Film Preservation
OVERVIEW
Capturing appropriate and relevant metadata is a crucial element in ensuring not
only the longevity of digital objects, but also the retrieval of content. For video files,
metadata is even more important, as “unlike textual resources, audio and video cannot be
adequately searched by themselves, as a raw resource.” Metadata for video can also
“enable the exchange of resources between institutions, and facilitates the internal
management and preservation of such resources” (NINCH Guide to Good Practice,
2002).
Gilliland-Swetland (2000) describes five types of metadata for preservation:
administrative, descriptive, preservation, technical, and use. Metadata can be stored
within the object, or separately, as a wrapper, with a way to link the metadata to the
specific digital object, as part of the Archival Information Package (AIP), as specified by
OAIS. Although “there is no shared good practice for what constitutes minimum
metadata for digital audio and video in the cultural heritage sector” (NINCH Guide to
Good Practice, 2002), it is possible to adapt a metadata standard for use with digital video
files, and capture as much information as possible.
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DUBLIN CORE
The Dublin Core Metadata Set contains fifteen elements: title, creator, subject,
description, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, identifier, source, language,
relation, coverage, and rights. The beauty of Dublin Core lies in its simplicity—it is able
to describe a wide variety of digital objects, and is fairly easy to create. However, it may
be too simple to describe the complexities of complex multimedia objects at a granular
level, such as the many video files that compose a finished digital video production.
Dublin Core does not address many types of information specific to broadcasting, such as
technical, preservation transfer, documentary, and transactional metadata (Wright, 2003).
One solution is to combine Dublin Core with something like the Resource
Description Framework (RDF), which can combine both Dublin Core Elements and
MPEG-7 descriptors within one container (Hunter & Armstrong, 1999). The Video
Development Initiative (ViDe) has created a Dublin Core Application Profile for Digital
Video, which defines the fifteen Dublin Core elements in terms of describing video
elements by adding qualifiers and extensions. Recommendations for standardizing
information in those fields by using controlled vocabulary are also included (Agnew &
Kniesner, 2001).
Another solution is utilizing the SMPTE Metadata Dictionary, developed by the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and considered “a comprehensive
complement to the minimalist Dublin Core element set” (Wactlar & Christel, 2002). The
SMPTE Metadata Dictionary was developed for the television and video industry, and
contains “audiovisual descriptors for the production environment, which covers the entire
production chain: pre-production, post-production, acquisition, distribution, broadcasting,
storage and archiving of digital audiovisual material” (Yang, Marchionini, Wildemuth,
Geisler, & Mu, 2002).
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METADATA ENCODING AND TRANSMISSION STANDARD
Inspired by the Dublin Core/Warwick Framework and the Resource Description
Framework, the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) schema is a
standard for encoding objects in a digital library, including descriptive, administrative,
and structural metadata, using the XML schema language. It was developed in response
to the Library of Congress’s Making of America (MOA) project, when a need was found
to express the relationships between digital objects (METS website). Because METS is a
metadata standard and can be adapted with various schemas, it is a good solution for
encoding appropriate metadata for digital video files. The NINCH Guide to Good
Practice recommends METS, with the appropriate schema, “to describe the content and
structure of time-based digital files such as audio and video.”
The Digital Audio-Visual Preservation Prototyping Project of the Library of
Congress, which explored “aspects of digital preservation for audio and video during
1999-2004” (Digital Audio-Visual Preservation Prototyping Project web site), created an
extension schema for METS specific to video files, the VMD schema. In addition, the
other schemas developed for this project, dealing with rights restrictions and migrating
and reformatting processes, may be useful.
SYNCHRONIZED MULTIMEDIA INTEGRATION LANGUAGE
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) is a World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C—an international consortium that develops World Wide Web
Standards) recommendation for encoding multimedia presentations, combining streaming
audio, video, text, images, and other media types, using XML (W3C Synchronized
Multimedia web site). The NINCH Guide to Good Practice also recommends the use of
SMIL, which “can be used to describe structural metadata about a particular frame of
13
video (frame 30, timecode 01:20:36.01) as well as link the appropriate series of frames to
alternate representations such as a transcription of the dialogue in that scene.”
MPEG-7 & MPEG-21
The Multimedia Content Description Interface (MPEG-7) “aims at providing
standardized core technologies allowing description of audiovisual data content in
multimedia environments” (Wactlar & Christel, 2002). Some of the detailed descriptors
specific to digital video include the creation and production processes of the content,
usage of the content, storage features, genre, and content. These descriptors can be used
for an entire production, or on a more granular level, describing each particular scene.
MPEG-21 is being designed to accommodate a wider range of description,
including “content creation, content production, content distribution, content
consumption and usage, content packaging, intellectual property management and
protection, content identification and description, financial management, user privacy,
terminals and network resource abstraction, content representation, and event reporting”
(Wactlar & Christel, 2002).
Identification of File Formats
In order to best preserve digital formats, the formats must be correctly identified.
With so many digital formats available, and the rapid increase in digital formats,
correctly identifying the proper one to ensure long-term preservation is difficult, at best.
Not only must the format be identified, but the correct documentation about the format
must also be found. In addition, “formats are platform-dependent to particular playback
machines” and “physical media require constant migration to new formats” (Ide &
McCarn, et al, 2002).
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DIGITAL FORMATS WEB SITE
The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
(NDIIPP) has created a digital format web site dedicated to the technical analysis of
digital formats. The Digital Formats Web Site defines file formats as “packages of
information that can be stored as data files or sent via network as data streams (aka
bitstreams).” These file formats are not tied to a particular physical medium.
The Digital Formats Web site identifies seven sustainability factors that affect the
long-term preservation of digital formats:
• Disclosure (is it open source or proprietary?),
• Adoption (is it widely used?),
• Transparency (how easy is it to analyze the format with basic tools?),
• Self-documentation (does it contain a certain amount of basic metadata?),
• External dependencies (does it depend on particular hardware, software, or
operating systems?),
• Impact of patents (is the format inhibited by patents?), and
• Technical protection mechanisms.
For moving image formats, the recommended quality and functionality factors
include clarity (high image resolution), fidelity (high audio resolution), and support for
multiple sound channels (Digital Formats web site).
The Digital Formats Web site is working in conjunction with the Global Digital
Format Registry in order to provide comprehensive identification of file formats. The
Global Digital Format Registry (GDFR) is an initiative created by Harvard University
and MIT DSpace in 2002 to “maintain persistent unambiguous bindings between public
identifiers for digital formats and representation information for those formats.” The
15
GDFR aims to be an informative resource to not only identify digital formats, but also to
validate attributes. Potential uses for this registry include the following:
• Identification (what format is this object?),
• Validation (is this really the format that it purports to be?),
• Transformation (how is this object produced?),
• Characterization (what are the properties of this object?),
• Risk assessment (what is this object’s risk of obsolescence?), and
• Delivery (how do I render this object?).
The next steps for the GDFR are to find funding to design, implement, and
populate a prototype system and to communicate the specifics of the project to relevant
parties, with an emphasis on cooperation between commercial and non-profit endeavors
(Abrams, 2004).
DIGITAL VIDEO FILE FORMATS
Digital Video (DV) was introduced in 1996, and was the first digital recording
format to reach the consumer market (VidiPax website). The variants of DV include
Mini-DV, DVCAM, and DVCPRO, among others. Mini-DV is the smaller format
version of DV, and, because of its high quality and low price, has become the standard
for semiprofessional and consumer video production. Mini-DV tapes (the “S” cassette)
are small in size (6.5 × 4.8 × 1.2 cm) and can hold between an hour or an hour and a half
of video. Although mini-DV does encode video using a compressed format (DCT
intraframe compression at a 5 to 1 rate), the compression is minimal, and there is no
noticeable effect on picture quality (Wikipedia website). Whether the mini-DV format
can be relied upon as an archival format at this point in time is a difficult question to
answer; as it is relatively new, no one knows how fast it deteriorates, even when kept in
proper storage conditions (TCA website). Ten years from now, will it be possible to find
16
machines to play back these tapes? For now, however, the format is still widely
supported, and finding playback equipment is not a concern.
Table 1: Digital Video Formats (from NINCH Guide to Good Practice)
Format Tape Size Compressor Compression Ratio
YUV Sampling
Running Time (minutes)
DVCAM/ mini-DV
6mm DV25 5:1 4:1:1 NTSC 4:2:0 PAL
184
DVCPRO 6mm DV25 5:1 4:1:1 183 DVCPRO 50
6mm DV50 3.1:1 4:2:2 90
Digital S 12.5mm DV50 3.1:1 4:2:2 124 Digital Betacam
12.5mm Sony 3:1 4:2:2 94
17
CASE STUDY: A TEXAS CORRECTION
While the current initiatives in preserving digital video hold promise for
establishing standards and building solutions for both the commercial entities creating the
content and the non-profit organizations committed to preserving it, the truth of the
matter is that the bulk of video production is still being done by the low-budget
filmmaker—those without the money to shoot on traditional film stock and, quite likely,
without the technological expertise to know how to preserve it. One such production is A
Texas Correction, a documentary directed by Susanne Mason, which has been in the
making for the last seven years. Because this is a low-budget, small-staffed production,
funded almost entirely with grant money, it exemplifies the difficulties of preserving
digital content from the filmmaker’s perspective, some of which might be facing
obsolescence and deterioration before the production is even completed.
About the Project
A Texas Correction, an hour-long documentary for public television, tells the
story of Fred Cruz, a Latino American prisoner from San Antonio who challenges the
Texas prison system by initiating a lawsuit that produced the most comprehensive state
prison reform in this country’s history. The film reconstructs this story with a
combination of contemporary film images, historical footage, interviews, and archival
still photos.
The film is directed by Susanne Mason, an Austin-based filmmaker. Mason is an
award-winning filmmaker whose credits include the documentary Stories from the
Riverside (1993), a riveting portrait of three women incarcerated for murdering their
alleged abusers. The film led Mason to pursue other prison stories, culminating in the
18
production of A Texas Correction. She produced Town In Transition, a short historical
documentary about the city of Austin, Texas during the period from 1950 and 1975. She
was associate producer for Mobilus Media on the hour-long PBS documentary Are the
Kids Alright? broadcast by public television stations across Texas on June 24, 2004. She
has served as associate producer and writer on several PBS documentaries, including
Words of Our Ancients (1997), The Struggle in the Fields (1996), Songs of the Homeland
(1994), and Go Back to Mexico! (1994). She produces video components and audio
elements for educational multimedia, and recently authored ten historical segments for
the upcoming Austin Past & Present Documentary DVD. A Texas Correction is Mason’s
feature debut.
Mason initiated development of the program in 1996, conducting extensive
original research into the lives of Fred Cruz and Frances Jalet and a series of
approximately 40 interviews with former and current Texas prisoners and prison officials.
This research formed the basis for the original outline and treatment of the film.
Fundraising and archival research began in 1996. Film production on 16mm followed in
1997 and 1998, after sufficient funds were raised. Alternating production and fundraising
activities made it possible to secure funds for different phases of production, including
interviews with friends of Fred Cruz, former prison wardens who knew him, and
prisoners who were housed on the Ellis unit during Cruz’s incarceration. In 2004, a rough
cut of the film was completed. Mason will direct completion of the project.
Funders of this film include the Austin Film Society, City of Austin Cultural Arts
Contract, Diocese of Austin, individual contributors, Latino Public Broadcasting,
National Endowment for the Arts, Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, Southern
Humanities Media Fund, Summerlee Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, Texas
19
Council for the Humanities, and the Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund. The total
anticipated cost of the finished film is $280,000.
Formats Involved in Production of Film
Because this is a documentary film developed for the public television market
(although it may indeed have a theatrical release), it shares many traits with other shows
produced for television (the preservation of which the NDIIPP project is currently
addressing). A Texas Correction consists of a number of different components, on a
variety of formats. Media sources include original footage, archival footage, photos,
documents, and audio sources (such as music and voiceover).
The original footage consists of digital video plus B-roll (secondary footage) shot
on 16mm film stock. The video component is mostly interviews, shot on a variety of
mini-DV cameras (Canon XL1, Sony VX1000, Sony DSR 300, and the Sony DSR 500)
onto either Sony or Panasonic mini-DV tapes. A few interviews were shot on a BetaCam
onto Beta SP tape (transferred to mini-DV), and one interview was shot on 3/4" SP tape
(transferred to Beta and then to mini-DV). The B-roll was shot on 16mm film and
transferred to digital Beta, which was then transferred to mini-DV (with identical time
codes). There are approximately 120 mini-DV tapes of this footage.
The archival footage was ordered from a variety of archives, such as CBS, ABC,
Producers Library, and the National Archives. The archival footage is drawn from
documentary films about Texas prisons (dating as far back as 1947), educational and
training films, news film, and surveillance video (from 1978). Initially, a VHS copy is
sent to view the footage; when the footage is deemed appropriate for use in the film, a
Beta version is sent, which is converted to mini-DV. There are approximately 40 mini-
DV tapes with archival footage.
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There are approximately 1,461 still images, consisting of photos, documents, and
newspaper headlines. The hard copy of these images is scanned into Photoshop, and
sections of the documents are converted into jpgs, which are used for editing.
In order to be edited, all of the footage must be in a digital format. Initially, the
project was edited using Avid, which was loaned to the project temporarily. When access
to the Avid program was lost, the project was moved to Final Cut Pro 2.0, as it was the
cheapest system that could handle a project of this magnitude, with Mac OS 9 as the
operating system. As footage is imported into Final Cut Pro (using the GV-D9000 Sony
NTSC mini-DV deck), it is converted to QuickTime files. Because of the size of the
project, the files are stored on six different hard drives (three internal and three external).
The files associated with the project take up over 500 gigs of hard drive space. Once the
edit is complete, the project is output to an Edit Decision List (EDL), which provides a
blueprint for assembling the film by referencing the unique ID and time code for each
piece of media. The EDL is then sent to an online editing house with the original media
to construct the film. Online editing involves editing with the highest-quality original
media available; Mason’s edit, using compressed media, is called on offline edit. An
editing house is used to properly correct the video for broadcast standards, which is
essential for this project, as the film was shot on so many different formats. The editing
house creates a master copy of the film on digital Beta, which is then used to create
access copies, such as VHS tapes or DVD.
Table 2: Life Cycle of the Production Process for A Texas Correction
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22
Why Were These Formats Chosen?
Because of the limited budget for this film, the formats used were chosen because
of necessity, and not necessarily because of quality, or longevity. Larger-budget films
have more luxury in determining their formats. Mini-DV was chosen because of cost;
Beta is preferred because it is a higher quality (it records video at a 3:1 compression ratio,
while mini-DV records at a 5:1 compression ratio), but one Beta tape costs over twice as
much as one mini-DV tape. An exception was made for the B-roll, which was shot on
16mm film to evoke the time period in which the film takes place.
It’s important to note that shooting for this project began in 1997; if this project
were to begin shooting today, it might be shot using a high definition format, or on digital
Beta. Also, the operating system and editing system that Mason uses is outdated—Final
Cut Pro 5.0 is now in use, and the Macintosh operating system she uses (Mac OS 9.2)
should also be upgraded. However, changing platforms and software programs could
cause more problems than it’s worth at this point in the project.
Metadata Generation
Because most of this content was created digitally, a certain amount of metadata
is automatically generated, such as the time codes from the mini-DV tapes. In addition, a
huge amount of content metadata was generated by the filmmaker and her staff, which is
being stored in Filemaker Pro databases. Three databases were designed specifically for
this project, based on a model provided by WGBH Educational Broadcasting Company.
The specificity of the information collected for this project highlights one of the problems
with choosing a metadata set—how do you find and/or adapt an existing metadata set that
meets all of your specific project needs? The three databases that track the material
contained in this project are: the original footage database (divided up by tape), the stills
23
database (divided into different categories, depending on the topic—each photo has its
own record), and the stock footage database (which contains information on the archival
footage). The fields contained in each database are listed below.
Table 3: Databases and Database Fields
Database Database Fields Original Footage Database
date entered tape # story # time in: time out: length subject event date: event location source: source ref. copyright ordered format original format sync color quality/comments description
The Stills Database
date entered series program # program: Let It Roll picture # subject picture date category: agriculture, building tenders, characters, cityscapes, civil rights demonstration, construction, disciplinary reports, diagnostics/welcoming committee, diaries/correspondence, field labor, industry: machine, industry: office, legal and criminal records, newspaper articles, official portraits, prison life and portraits, prison units/farms, recreation/rodeos, solitary/isolation, warden/guard life and portraits event location personalities
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description artist source source ref image type copyright owner color ordered format location restrictions/release notes frame # rights obtained date portrayed
The Stock Footage Database
date entered series program # program: A Texas Correction picture # subject picture date category: agriculture, building tenders, characters, cityscapes, civil rights demonstration, construction, disciplinary reports, diagnostics/welcoming committee, diaries/correspondence, field labor, industry: machine, industry: office, legal and criminal records, newspaper articles, official portraits, prison life and portraits, prison units/farms, recreation/rodeos, solitary/isolation, warden/guard life and portraits event location personalities description artist source source ref image type copyright owner color ordered format location restrictions/release notes frame # rights obtained date portrayed
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Preservation of Formats
Mason has collected quite an array of both digital and non-digital formats
associated with her project to preserve. Her photos, documents, and traditional film stock
are not in danger, as long as they are stored in the proper conditions. However, some of
her digital content is quite old—her oldest mini-DV tape dates back to 1997, although in
2001, all of her mini-DV tapes were duplicated onto new mini-DV tapes, so currently,
her oldest mini-DV formats are at least four years old.
What can Mason feasibly do to preserve her digital content? If Mason had an
unlimited budget, she could purchase a Digital Asset Management system to manage all
of her digital files. For a project with this budget, however, that’s out of the question. One
option is to store all of the footage on mini-DV tapes onto external hard drives—prices
for storage of this nature have dropped considerably, and removing the footage from the
platform-dependent nature of the mini-DV cassette tape, which has the same deterioration
issues as analog tape (TCA website), would mean that she would no longer be dependent
on playback machines, nor would she be reliant on constant migration, what Ide and
MacCarn call “a nightmare for collecting institutions.”
Her other digital materials would need to be migrated to non-proprietary formats.
Her image files should be converted to tiff formats, the information in her Filemaker Pro
databases should be exported to tab-delimited ASCII text (or an open-source relational
database), her Edit Decision List should be stored as an RTF file or ASCII text, and her
QuickTime files (used during the editing process) should also be stored on external hard
drives, and migrated when necessary.
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Table 4: Formats to Preserve
Formats to Preserve Ideal Storage Mini-DV tapes Raw video files on external hard
drives or migrated to mini-DV tapes 16 mm film Standard film storage conditions Beta stock Migration Photos/Documents Standard photo/paper storage
conditions Filemaker Pro databases Tab-delimited ASCII text or open-
source relational database Image files (jpgs) Tifs QuickTime files External hard drives Edit Decision List RTF file
An ideal solution, although one possibly limited by Mason’s expertise, is to create
her own Archival Information Package, as stipulated by OAIS, of both her content and
her metadata. Using METS, Mason could create a comprehensive schema, utilizing
standard Dublin Core elements and specialized elements relevant to video, that
encompass not only the metadata automatically generated by the raw video files, but also
the information she created for her databases. Each piece of content is identified by a
unique number (for the video files, a unique number, identifying the specific mini-DV
tape, as well as a time code, identifying where on the tape the scene is located), which
can be used to link the metadata to the content. Additionally, the QuickTime compressed
file could be linked to the identical, uncompressed raw video file. Using a METS
document to formalize the generated metadata (as a wrapper for the digital content)
would allow Mason to manage the entire project as one task.
As this AIP would be solely for Mason’s use, there’s no need for metadata for
resource discovery across platforms. But the other metadata she has already generated,
especially the content descriptions and the copyright restrictions, will prove invaluable
for future identification and use of her material. The external hard drives would act as
27
Mason’s own digital repository, storing both the content and the metadata associated with
the content. The material on these drives would be backed up on a regular basis.
Future Online Access
Because A Texas Correction is designed for broadcast on public television, online
access to this footage is not really an issue. There is no website for the project, and no
footage is available online. However, due to the tenuous financial footing of this project,
the future is uncertain. The film might never be finished. It might be finished, but may
never be broadcast on public television. It might never be distributed, either locally or
nationally. The film may not receive future funding, and may never amount to anything
other than several boxes of mini-DV tapes stored in a closet in Austin, Texas. It has been
said that preservation without access is pointless; why should Mason bother preserving
her digital content if no one is able to see them? Even if Mason never is able to release
her film in the traditional ways (through television broadcast or distribution in movie
theaters), several options do exist for future use of the massive amounts of original
footage that have been created during the eight years of shooting this production. If she
chooses, Mason can provide online access to her original footage, to be used for research
or in the use of other productions, provided she is able to preserve her original content so
that it can not only be identified, but also accessed. Mason already has compressed
QuickTime versions of her digital content, which is an appropriate digital format for
online access. Two such options are the Moving Image Archive and the Open Video
Project, both online access repositories for moving image content.
THE MOVING IMAGE ARCHIVE
The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) was founded in 1996 as an online
digital library, preserving digital collections and making them available to the public. The
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Internet Archive provides access to 30 billion archived web pages through the Wayback
Machine, digitized texts through the Text Archive, audio collections through the Live
Music Archive, and moving image collections through the Moving Image Archive
(http://www.archive.org/movies/movies.php). A huge component of the Moving Image
Archive is the Prelinger Archives. The Prelinger Archives is a collection of over 48,000
ephemeral (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films, recently acquired by
the Library of Congress. Currently, 2,002 titles from the Prelinger Archives are available
in digital format through the Moving Image Archive.
All of the films on the Moving Image Archive are free to view, download, and
repurpose, making this an invaluable resource not only for scholars conducting research,
but for artists and filmmakers as well. Users are encouraged to “download the movies,
sample them, use them for classroom study, run them at theaters, or even use the footage
to make a for-profit film” (Slaton, 2001). This certainly differs from the footage available
for viewing in a traditional film archive. The Internet Archive maintains a collection of
Open Source Movies (http://www.archive.org/movies/opensource_movies.php), which
are short movies contributed by the community, oftentimes utilizing footage found in the
Moving Image Archive. There are currently 3,904 movies in the Open Source Movies
collection.
The moving image files from the Prelinger Archive are in the MPEG-2 format, “a
widely accepted standard for video playback” (Moving Image Archive website). MPEG-
2 provides a high-quality format for viewing and reusing these movies, but as a result, the
files are larger, which may be prohibitive for users on slower computers or utilizing dial-
up connections. Some movies are also available in the DivX format and editable MPEG-4
files, which can be used in an editing program, such as Final Cut Pro.
29
In order to digitize these films, the original films were transferred to Betacam SP
videotapes, which were then digitized at bitrates ranging from 2.75 Mbps to 3.5 Mbps,
and encoded at 480 × 480 pixels or 368 × 480 pixels. According to the Moving Image
Archive website, the “picture quality is equal to or better than most direct broadcast
satellite television” (Moving Image Archive website).
Submissions can be uploaded to the Internet Moving Image Archive, using an ftp
client. Once the uploads are complete, the movies are imported, which includes supplying
metadata, such as title, producer, and year of production. A curator views the movie, at
which point it is made available on the site.
THE OPEN VIDEO PROJECT
The Open Video Project (http://www.open-video.org) was developed by the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Interaction Design Laboratory. Although the
main goals of the Open Video Project are to provide open source digital videos for use
for research and development and to provide a training ground for students in digital
libraries, a nice side benefit is that it also serves the needs of the public by providing “an
open source repository of video” (Open Video website). The collection is searchable and
browsable, and consists primarily of videos acquired from government and academic
institutions which are in the public domain (Mattison, 2004).
Currently, the collection contains 2,543 videos. The majority of the films are
available in MPEG-1 format, although MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and Quicktime formats are
represented as well. In addition to providing the files for download, the Open Video
Project provides a graphical user interface that allows users to view slideshows of the
video, storyboards, and fast forwards. This means that users need not sit through an entire
video segment, or wait for it to be downloaded, if they are only looking for a particular
item. Collections include video from the following projects: the University of Maryland
30
HCIL Open House Video Reports, the Informedia Project at Carnegie Mellon University,
the 2001 TREC Video Retrieval Test Collection, the CHI Video Retrospective, the
Digital Himalaya Project, and the NASA K-16 Science Education Programs (the Open
Video project web site).
Due to limited staffing, the Open Video Project is not accepting new video
submissions at this time. However, in the past, collections containing multiple videos and
videos that might be of interest to the education community were actively solicited.
Mason’s original footage for A Texas Correction certainly seems to meet those
qualifications. Additionally, she has QuickTime versions of all her footage, which is one
of the formats accepted for inclusion into the Open Video Project.
CONCLUSION
What can filmmakers do to ensure preservation of their digital moving image
files? First, greater education is needed for the filmmaker. Digital preservation courses
should become part of the curriculum of every film school. Second, filmmakers need to
be cognizant of the preservation implications of the formats that they choose—how long
will these formats last? What are the best storage conditions? How compressed are these
files? What are the benefits to shooting and storing footage in as non-lossy a format as
possible? Third, filmmakers need to understand that digital preservation is a moving
target, and constant vigilance will be required on their part to ensure access not only to
their final product, but also to the individual parts that compose the final whole.
In the near future, films created digitally will be considered as great a part of our
cultural heritage as films created with film stock. There may never be a perfect solution
to preserving digital items; however, we are facing a shorter time span with digital
31
formats than with analog formats. The digital bits won’t wait. While it is encouraging to
see the strides that are being made in developing not only standards, but solutions, it is
essential that steps be taken now, not only by those entrusted with preserving the content,
but by those creating it.
32
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Vita
Sara Natalie Fuchs was born in Beaufort, South Carolina on May 9, 1974, the
daughter of Virginia Sayers-King and Richard Fuchs. After graduating from Alan C.
Pope High School in Marietta, Georgia, she attended the University of Georgia, Athens,
Georgia. She graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Georgia in
1996, with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Mass Communication. Between
her undergraduate and graduate schooling, she has been an Americorps volunteer in
Atlanta, Georgia; a bookshop employee in London, England; a waitress in Dublin,
Ireland; a project administrator, proofreader, and editor in Austin, Texas; and a traveler in
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. In June of 2003, she entered the
School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, to pursue a Master of Science
in Information Studies.
Permanent Address: 96 Robert T. Martinez Jr. St.
Austin, Texas 78702
This Master’s Report was typed by the author.
