31 / 150
31
R&D Projects
- Overview
ARCHIVATOR
(E! 4863)
Eurostars project
Project duration: 2009-2012
Project budget: 7,5 mill euro
Project Abstract
Long-term archiving today is a "never ending story"
of migration to new hardware and software platforms
and re-recording of the same data. The ARCHIVATOR
project aimed to change the way the world will do
long-term archiving of digital content. New technolo-
gies, new products, new processes and workflows was
established as a part of this project. The aim is further
to set up a new and innovative business model that
facilitates a quick market introduction and adaptation
of the ARCHIVATOR process as the preferred option for
long-term archiving of digital data. A fantastic project
consortium was put together to accomplish this task.
The best optical system designers in Europe, IN-VISION
Digital Imaging GmbH, provide imaging optics to Piql’s
sophisticated Data Recording and Data SCanning sys-
tems (piqlWriter and piqlReader), provided by Piql and
P+S Technik GmbH (PSTF).
These three companies already have successfully
worked together to create commercial win-win results
before.
Further an innovative and leading company in the field
of digital archiving, Tecnologías Digitales Audiovisuales,
S.L. (TEDIAL) was selected to be the partner for en-
coding and packaging of data for recording as well as
de-coding and un-packaging of data after scanning.
Finally, two leading users and providers of archiving
services, Nordisk Film Post Productions AS (NFPP) and
Centro de Produccion Audiovisual Autor, S.R.L. (CPAA),
were selected to provide inputs and requirements from
the market side.
The target for the ARCHIVATOR was to create an
open standard for long term archiving for the future!
Massive amounts of digital data require long-term
archiving (>> 50 years). Exponentially growing amounts of
data demand for logistically effective and cost efficient
processes. Digital storage media (DVD, hard disks,
magnetic tapes) exhibit limited lifetime. Repetitive
data migration to overcome the rapid obsolescence
of hardware and software (application SW and oper-
ating systems) bears accelerated risk of data loss, data
corruption or even manipulation and adds significant
repetitive costs for hardware and software investments.
The project consortium strongly believes that long-
term archiving of digital data on specialized non-fading
polyester-based micrographic film is a true alternative,
while such material shows a proven long-term stability
of more than 500 years under regular storage condi-
tions.
Piql and its partners developed a long-term archiving
concept basing on the principles of a very fast micro-
display based Data Recording on film for archiving and
high-speed Data Scanning for data retrieval. Together
with the unique Data Boxing and Un-Boxing this closed-
loop archiving chain is made independent from hard-
ware and software platforms and is extremely safe and
cost efficient compared to archiving concepts using
digital storage media.
The ARCHIVATOR project comprised of
• DATA BOXING to convert digital and digitized film
and media data (or any other data format) including
ingestion, formatting, encoding, and encryption of
object data and combination with meta data;
• DATA RECORDING to expose digital and digitized
data to high resolution micrographic film material with
a high-speed process, optimizing data density and bit
depth on film and its reproducibility;
• DATA SCANNING at high resolution to re-generate
exposed data from film and prove consolidation of the
process chain;
• DATA UN-BOXING to reliably restore scanned data,
decode and re-format data and make them readable.
• STORAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, i.e. definition of
archival procedures of storing film in save archives and
definition of workflows to integrate the film-based long-
term archiving process into short and medium-term dig-
ital storage processes.
Project Partners
• In-Vision, Austrian experts in Digital Imaging
OpticsCPAA, Spanish media and post production
• Nordic Film Post Production, Norwegian film post
production and laboratory
• Tedial, Spanish experts in digital audiovisual
technologies
• P+S Technik Gmbh, German manufacturing of
professional cinema equipment
• Piql AS