Jean Varra. Institut national de l’audiovisuel (Ina) 30 September 2017
Digital technology has replaced analogue video and audio technology, bringing numerous changes in media businesses and practices and has become unavoidable: new systems, new uses, new delivery modes…. Files have totally replaced video and audio tapes; There is a great variety of essence and wrappers standards. Image and sound quality is moving to higher and higher resolutions (from SD to HD to Ultra HD/4K to 8K and sound from mono to stereo to Surround sound). Storage capacity and speed are increasing constantly. This digital world is evolving very fast and will not stop evolving
Digital has many advantages but has its own drawbacks! If some essential tasks are not undertaken, digital content may be endangered. This context raises several questions, archivists must answer:
• How to ensure everlastingness of my assets/contents?
• How can I be sure that my format and technical choices are the good ones? What are the criteria?
• How to ensure integrity of data? What are the risks? What are the tools and methods to apply?
The following document draws the current situation and gives some guide lines or best practices to answer these questions.
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