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Together, they are working to develop a process for archiving digital image and audio data securely and cost-effectively for future generations over a period of 100 years or more. The two-year project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) as part of the Central Innovation Programme for SMEs (ZIM).
In the long-term archiving of television and cinema productions, recording on film negative has so far ensured that the film is preserved in optimum quality for future generations as an economic and cultural asset. However, as digital cameras are used increasingly often, producers face the challenge of guaranteeing long-term stable archiving of the data.
The “Store & Ignore” approach familiar from analogue film material does not yet exist for archiving the native image and audio data of digital productions. With existing digital technologies, secure long-term archiving would require regular copying to new data carriers and thus a continuous flow of financial resources throughout the entire archiving period.
CinePostproduction and the Technical University of Braunschweig are now pursuing a novel research approach by combining film as an analogue storage medium with its outstanding long-term stability and the storage of digital information. The “Bits on Film” technology, which has already been researched at the Institute for Communications Technology for microfilm exposure, is being further developed for the universal 35 mm motion-picture film standard.
The aim of the research project is a cost-effective process that securely archives image and audio data for more than 100 years, independently of future new standards for digital storage media and access technologies.
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