Why bother? - Let’s just have:

Best quality Preserve original properties Lowest size Fast and easy to open/use Lasts forever +cherries 🍒 & ice cream 🍦on top! …

Which digital AV formats…

• do you know?
• do you use?
• would you like to know more about?

Digital Video Trinity

What’s a Container?

“A container format (informally, sometimes called a wrapper) […] is a file format that allows multiple data streams to be embedded into a single file, usually along with metadata for identifying and further detailing those streams.”

Source: Wikipedia: Container format (computing)

What’s a Container?

Think of a regular paper folder… It’s a wrapper around content. Contains Metadata. Structures the content streams.

What’s a Codec?

“A codec is a device or computer program which encodes or decodes a data stream or signal.”

Source: Wikipedia: Codec

What’s a Codec?

Think of a human language…

• It’s coded information.
• There may be dialects.
• Different people may
  “speak / understand” differently.

Format Naming

Triplet notation greatly helps reducing confusion:

• H.264 / AAC in MP4
• FFV1 / PCM in MKV (Matroska)
• ProRes / PCM in MOV
• DPX / WAV (PCM) in a folder
• etc

Let’s look inside! :)

Paper analogy

VLC / MediaInfo

Website: videolan.org/vlc

Website: mediaarea.net/MediaInfo

Characteristics / Properties

Digital AV Properties

• Basic
• Advanced

Format choice = A balance of …

• Size
• Quality
• Performance
• plus: time, budget, staff

Good starting point for assessing practical usefulness.

In greater detail…

“Different strokes for different folks” 😉

• Digitization: As-original, as-untouched as possible. (Plus: headroom for optional restoration/improvements.)

• Preservation: Stand the test of time.
  (Highest ‘original’ quality)

• Mezzanine: For daily work. High quality.
  (Optional, if preservation format can be used for this)

• Access For quick and easy access.
  (Quality not necessarily best/high)

Format Wars

“My format is ... than yours. Bäh!”

Options = 😝 🤑 🤩 🤫 🤔 🤐 😴 🤮 ... Have fun!

Your use cases/priorities?

• Who will want/need to work with these files?
• Under which conditions?
• For how long?
• Digitization vs Production vs Preservation vs Access?
• Which properties are significant to you?

Significant properties

Knowing and deciding which properties to safeguard and which are allowed to change.

See:
LoC FADGI: DRAFT Significant Properties for Digital Video
Nestor (DE): Leitfaden DLTP AV Medien

Significant properties

Depend on media type (and use case).

Yagni Kiss Moscow?

YAGNI / KISS / MoSCoW

Exercise: Your Format Policy

Split in groups, choose a use-case and try to phrase your “wishes”.

Comparison of institutional policies

• Guidelines for the Digital Film Collection (Austrian Filmmuseum, 2018)
• Digital Preservation & Access Strategy (Irish Film Archive, 2016)
• Digital Preservation: Policy, Standards and Procedures (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, 2016)