[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
While h264 is a great codec for delivering video on the web or reducing the size of video files on hard disk, I'd question its use as an archival format, not just because it is proprietary, but also because it is lossy and limited in quality. I would strongly, strongly advise against using ogg/theora for this reason. I'd suggest a codec that is lossless, capable of 4:4:4 colour reproduction and allows for 10, 12 or 16 bit samples. In addition to these quality considerations it should have an open bitstream specification at least, if not open source software to encode and decode it. H.264 fails both on quality, and on openness. It's a fantastic codec for delivery, but I'd think twice about using it for archiving. I'd suggest looking at the FFV1 codec, which we are implementing for our AV archives. It is entirely open source, it allows 16bit 4:4:4 samples, has robust error correction, and is mathematically lossless. The project it comes from, the open source ffmpeg video conversion tool is widely used and is under active development. FFV1 is used by the ?stereichische Mediathek (Austrian national video archive) which have developed FOSS digitisation software using it. Also worth investigating is the Library of Congress' favoured codec, motion JPEG 2000. I trialled MJ2K for our purposes, but I found that it required much greater hardware resources than FFV1. As a container format we use Matroska, also open source, which is a very flexible container format, on a par with Quicktime, but without the proprietary constraints. The MXF container format is another option that allows flexible wrapping of essence and metadata, and has been widely adopted. Stephen Dixon Digital Video Officer Museum Victoria ph +61 3 8341 7588 On 26/07/2013, at 4:55 AM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.commailto:hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: I love Open Source, but not for this purpose. The prime object of an archive format is broad support for the longest possible time. The OS video formats have not proven to be effective competitors, and do not have a promising future. Great in theory. Bad in practice. While I don't like being attached to proprietary formats, there is no perfect answer right now. MPEG, both the formats and the organization, have a very long track record and are more widely used in critical applications by a huge margin. In the longevity wars, MPEG is the absolute clear winner. MPEG is, quite literally, where all the money is. While Quicktime is proprietary (Apple), it's important to remember that is only a wrapper and not a codec. It is powerful and very well documented. Right now, it is probably the most widely supported wrapper, playable on pretty much any computer built in the past decade. It is well documented and should be decodable and playable for quite a long time. And because it is only a wrapper, it is easily unwrapped and rewrapped in a future wrapper at very low effort and zero quality loss. My choice today for archiving is Quicktime wrapped MPEG. Today this would by h264 codec, but in the near future it will the MPEG successors. While using an MPEG wrapper would seem like a better choice, MPEG wrappers are fussy, inflexible, have wide compatibility issues and poor legacy support. I don't trust them in the long term. Maybe in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 23, 2013, at 8:27 AM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote: Hi all, When storing digital materials for conservation I would always advise using open formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format), for video I would use OGG/THEORA or WebM if I had the chance. We do this for openimages.euhttp://openimages.eu. The problem with QuickTime and Windows Media Files are that they are mostly not available on different platforms. It is already difficult to open .mov or or. wmv on Windows or OS X respectively. Let alone on Android or iOS and up and coming ChromeOS, . As a trend we see that desktops and offline management system are declining (i.e. we work more and more in a browser using browser based management systems, either on our desktops, laptops, phones, or tablets) To prevent having to re-encode all your video files in the future against high software costs I would always choose open file formats. That way any software maker or open source developer can create a video player for these files. My semi-related 50 cents. Cheers, Maarten Zeinstra -- Kennisland | www.kennisland.nlhttp://www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra On Jul 13, 2013, at 21:53 , Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.commailto:lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: A product which you might find useful is Wondersharehttp://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/#con3 which I have used from time to time for various video conversions. It has many more features, including some video editing capabilities. There is free trial version although it watermarks test
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
Will I heartily agree that WMV and AVI are problematic on Mac and Unix platforms, Quicktime playback and manipulation has been well supported under Windows and Linux for many years and continue to be. The major difference is that WMV and AVI work best with their own, Windows-only, codecs and are not particularly flexible as wrappers or across platforms. Quicktime, however, is a wrapper only and not a codec, and it has been well supported across platforms for a long time. You can argue that in a Windows dominant world, WMV and AVI, despite their lack of support on Mac, are safe for the foreseeable future. It's a reasonable position if you believe that Windows will continue to be relevant. As it happens, I don't. I believe that Windows 7 was the last important Windows version. The future, and I mean the near future, will be dominated by other, more stable, cheaper and flexible operating systems like Chrome, Android, iOS, and others. It will be a multi-platform world and Windows will increasing be seen as an island. There will also be new and better wrappers, such as MXF and future MPEG versions. However, no matter what bet you make, the only safe course is to plan for periodic format conversion. That is simply the nature of technology. The real question is when, not if. cheers, tod On Jul 23, 2013, at 8:27 AM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote: Hi all, When storing digital materials for conservation I would always advise using open formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format), for video I would use OGG/THEORA or WebM if I had the chance. We do this for openimages.eu. The problem with QuickTime and Windows Media Files are that they are mostly not available on different platforms. It is already difficult to open .mov or or. wmv on Windows or OS X respectively. Let alone on Android or iOS and up and coming ChromeOS, . As a trend we see that desktops and offline management system are declining (i.e. we work more and more in a browser using browser based management systems, either on our desktops, laptops, phones, or tablets) To prevent having to re-encode all your video files in the future against high software costs I would always choose open file formats. That way any software maker or open source developer can create a video player for these files. My semi-related 50 cents. Cheers, Maarten Zeinstra -- Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra On Jul 13, 2013, at 21:53 , Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: A product which you might find useful is Wondersharehttp://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/#con3 which I have used from time to time for various video conversions. It has many more features, including some video editing capabilities. There is free trial version although it watermarks test outputs. It generally gets good reviews. Hope this help. Len On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:35 PM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: On a Mac, you can use the Flip4Mac plug-in. Not free. You can also use most high-end compression packages. I believe Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Encode (part of the Adobe Suites that include Premiere) can compress from Quicktime to WMV. Both are available for both Mac and PC for that matter. On Windows, I personally prefer TMPG Video Masterworks for most compression and conversion, including Quicktime to WMV. There may be other lower cost and even free options on Windows. I just don't know them off the top of my head. I believe it is possible to use Windows Movie Maker for instance. I would search Google for advise on this path. As Michael points out, compression/transcoding is a tricky business when quality and compatibility are important, especially if you don't have a calibrated setup. I do not advise the use of WMV for archival video, but that is your choice. Although it is high quality, and common, it is one of the most restricted codecs in use. I DO condone the use of Quicktime as long as the internal codec is a high-quality, cross platform standard such as MPEG4 or JPEG2000. Unlike WMV, Quicktime is only a file wrapper, not a codec, and can be played and manipulated on the major platforms with relative ease. It is much less likely one would ever be trapped by Quicktime, even if Apple drops support. I would suggest that you go ahead and convert for your system, but keep the incompatible original if you can. It may prove useful in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
In a perfect world, I would prefer people used only lossless codecs for archiving, but this is far from a perfect world. FFV1 and JPEG2000 are excellent for lossless archiving, but there are prohibitively expensive for most institutions at large scale. Being a documentarian, I would prefer the people preserve more, even if at lower quality. I don't have a single client that could afford to preserve more than a fraction of their video collection at lossless quality, so I consider lossy codecs an absolutely essential part of an archive system. Failing to compromise will result in loss of materials as institutions prioritize the value of their collections and delay implementation due to funds. One does not have to digitize all materials at the same quality. Digitizing VHS videotape at 4:4:4, 16-bit would be pointless, but anything less for 35mm film is a significant compromise. In fact, 35mm should be scanned at 4K resolution, at least, and over-scanned to include the sprocket areas to capture edge markings. Unfortunately, almost no one can afford this. I have a client now whose collection is 50% VHS, most of which is oral history whose visual quality is of low importance. Clearly digitizing this at lossless resolution would be a massive waste of time and funds. In fact, event he highest quality materials this institution holds would not benefit from lossless compression, nor would the priorities of the institution support such a costly decision. Moving this institution from 12Mpbs to 40Mbps standard was a big hurdle. Anything above 50Mbps is unthinkable. But delaying digitizing videotape is the biggest mistake. We are in a critical time. Videotape not converted to digital form in the next decade is likely to be lost forever. Much of what is held in collections now is already effectively lost or at least significantly degraded. The archives just don't know it yet. Video is costly to convert and store, so minimizing the archival costs is critical. cheers, tod On Jul 26, 2013, at 1:22 AM, Dixon, Stephen wrote: While h264 is a great codec for delivering video on the web or reducing the size of video files on hard disk, I'd question its use as an archival format, not just because it is proprietary, but also because it is lossy and limited in quality. I would strongly, strongly advise against using ogg/theora for this reason. I'd suggest a codec that is lossless, capable of 4:4:4 colour reproduction and allows for 10, 12 or 16 bit samples. In addition to these quality considerations it should have an open bitstream specification at least, if not open source software to encode and decode it. H.264 fails both on quality, and on openness. It's a fantastic codec for delivery, but I'd think twice about using it for archiving. I'd suggest looking at the FFV1 codec, which we are implementing for our AV archives. It is entirely open source, it allows 16bit 4:4:4 samples, has robust error correction, and is mathematically lossless. The project it comes from, the open source ffmpeg video conversion tool is widely used and is under active development. FFV1 is used by the ?stereichische Mediathek (Austrian national video archive) which have developed FOSS digitisation software using it. Also worth investigating is the Library of Congress' favoured codec, motion JPEG 2000. I trialled MJ2K for our purposes, but I found that it required much greater hardware resources than FFV1. As a container format we use Matroska, also open source, which is a very flexible container format, on a par with Quicktime, but without the proprietary constraints. The MXF container format is another option that allows flexible wrapping of essence and metadata, and has been widely adopted. Stephen Dixon Digital Video Officer Museum Victoria ph +61 3 8341 7588 On 26/07/2013, at 4:55 AM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.commailto:hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: I love Open Source, but not for this purpose. The prime object of an archive format is broad support for the longest possible time. The OS video formats have not proven to be effective competitors, and do not have a promising future. Great in theory. Bad in practice. While I don't like being attached to proprietary formats, there is no perfect answer right now. MPEG, both the formats and the organization, have a very long track record and are more widely used in critical applications by a huge margin. In the longevity wars, MPEG is the absolute clear winner. MPEG is, quite literally, where all the money is. While Quicktime is proprietary (Apple), it's important to remember that is only a wrapper and not a codec. It is powerful and very well documented. Right now, it is probably the most widely supported wrapper, playable on pretty much any computer built in the past decade. It is well documented and should be decodable and
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
I love Open Source, but not for this purpose. The prime object of an archive format is broad support for the longest possible time. The OS video formats have not proven to be effective competitors, and do not have a promising future. Great in theory. Bad in practice. While I don't like being attached to proprietary formats, there is no perfect answer right now. MPEG, both the formats and the organization, have a very long track record and are more widely used in critical applications by a huge margin. In the longevity wars, MPEG is the absolute clear winner. MPEG is, quite literally, where all the money is. While Quicktime is proprietary (Apple), it's important to remember that is only a wrapper and not a codec. It is powerful and very well documented. Right now, it is probably the most widely supported wrapper, playable on pretty much any computer built in the past decade. It is well documented and should be decodable and playable for quite a long time. And because it is only a wrapper, it is easily unwrapped and rewrapped in a future wrapper at very low effort and zero quality loss. My choice today for archiving is Quicktime wrapped MPEG. Today this would by h264 codec, but in the near future it will the MPEG successors. While using an MPEG wrapper would seem like a better choice, MPEG wrappers are fussy, inflexible, have wide compatibility issues and poor legacy support. I don't trust them in the long term. Maybe in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 23, 2013, at 8:27 AM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote: Hi all, When storing digital materials for conservation I would always advise using open formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format), for video I would use OGG/THEORA or WebM if I had the chance. We do this for openimages.eu. The problem with QuickTime and Windows Media Files are that they are mostly not available on different platforms. It is already difficult to open .mov or or. wmv on Windows or OS X respectively. Let alone on Android or iOS and up and coming ChromeOS, . As a trend we see that desktops and offline management system are declining (i.e. we work more and more in a browser using browser based management systems, either on our desktops, laptops, phones, or tablets) To prevent having to re-encode all your video files in the future against high software costs I would always choose open file formats. That way any software maker or open source developer can create a video player for these files. My semi-related 50 cents. Cheers, Maarten Zeinstra -- Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra On Jul 13, 2013, at 21:53 , Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: A product which you might find useful is Wondersharehttp://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/#con3 which I have used from time to time for various video conversions. It has many more features, including some video editing capabilities. There is free trial version although it watermarks test outputs. It generally gets good reviews. Hope this help. Len On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:35 PM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: On a Mac, you can use the Flip4Mac plug-in. Not free. You can also use most high-end compression packages. I believe Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Encode (part of the Adobe Suites that include Premiere) can compress from Quicktime to WMV. Both are available for both Mac and PC for that matter. On Windows, I personally prefer TMPG Video Masterworks for most compression and conversion, including Quicktime to WMV. There may be other lower cost and even free options on Windows. I just don't know them off the top of my head. I believe it is possible to use Windows Movie Maker for instance. I would search Google for advise on this path. As Michael points out, compression/transcoding is a tricky business when quality and compatibility are important, especially if you don't have a calibrated setup. I do not advise the use of WMV for archival video, but that is your choice. Although it is high quality, and common, it is one of the most restricted codecs in use. I DO condone the use of Quicktime as long as the internal codec is a high-quality, cross platform standard such as MPEG4 or JPEG2000. Unlike WMV, Quicktime is only a file wrapper, not a codec, and can be played and manipulated on the major platforms with relative ease. It is much less likely one would ever be trapped by Quicktime, even if Apple drops support. I would suggest that you go ahead and convert for your system, but keep the incompatible original if you can. It may prove useful in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
Hi all, When storing digital materials for conservation I would always advise using open formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format), for video I would use OGG/THEORA or WebM if I had the chance. We do this for openimages.eu. The problem with QuickTime and Windows Media Files are that they are mostly not available on different platforms. It is already difficult to open .mov or or. wmv on Windows or OS X respectively. Let alone on Android or iOS and up and coming ChromeOS, . As a trend we see that desktops and offline management system are declining (i.e. we work more and more in a browser using browser based management systems, either on our desktops, laptops, phones, or tablets) To prevent having to re-encode all your video files in the future against high software costs I would always choose open file formats. That way any software maker or open source developer can create a video player for these files. My semi-related 50 cents. Cheers, Maarten Zeinstra -- Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra On Jul 13, 2013, at 21:53 , Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: A product which you might find useful is Wondersharehttp://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/#con3 which I have used from time to time for various video conversions. It has many more features, including some video editing capabilities. There is free trial version although it watermarks test outputs. It generally gets good reviews. Hope this help. Len On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:35 PM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: On a Mac, you can use the Flip4Mac plug-in. Not free. You can also use most high-end compression packages. I believe Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Encode (part of the Adobe Suites that include Premiere) can compress from Quicktime to WMV. Both are available for both Mac and PC for that matter. On Windows, I personally prefer TMPG Video Masterworks for most compression and conversion, including Quicktime to WMV. There may be other lower cost and even free options on Windows. I just don't know them off the top of my head. I believe it is possible to use Windows Movie Maker for instance. I would search Google for advise on this path. As Michael points out, compression/transcoding is a tricky business when quality and compatibility are important, especially if you don't have a calibrated setup. I do not advise the use of WMV for archival video, but that is your choice. Although it is high quality, and common, it is one of the most restricted codecs in use. I DO condone the use of Quicktime as long as the internal codec is a high-quality, cross platform standard such as MPEG4 or JPEG2000. Unlike WMV, Quicktime is only a file wrapper, not a codec, and can be played and manipulated on the major platforms with relative ease. It is much less likely one would ever be trapped by Quicktime, even if Apple drops support. I would suggest that you go ahead and convert for your system, but keep the incompatible original if you can. It may prove useful in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions? Best Regards, Sarah Gillis Assistant Registrar, Image Management Worcester Art Museum 55 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609 sarahgillis at worcesterart.org mailto:sarahgillis at worcesterart.org 508.799.4406 x3027 direct line: 508-793-4427 Our image reproduction application is now available online! Image Reproduction Request http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/collection_information.html Want to own your own custom reproduction of a Worcester Art Museum masterpiece? Visit our partner Rudinec Assoc. today! Request-A-Print http://www.requestaprint.net/worcester/index.php Introducing: Zazzle! Our online museum shop where you can purchase custom merchandise containing images from our permanent collection! Check it out today! Worceser Art Museum - Zazzle Shop http://www.zazzle.com/worcesterartmuseum ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
+1 Op 23 jul. 2013, om 14:27 heeft Maarten Zeinstra mz at kl.nl het volgende geschreven: Hi all, When storing digital materials for conservation I would always advise using open formats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_format), for video I would use OGG/THEORA or WebM if I had the chance. We do this for openimages.eu. The problem with QuickTime and Windows Media Files are that they are mostly not available on different platforms. It is already difficult to open .mov or or. wmv on Windows or OS X respectively. Let alone on Android or iOS and up and coming ChromeOS, . As a trend we see that desktops and offline management system are declining (i.e. we work more and more in a browser using browser based management systems, either on our desktops, laptops, phones, or tablets) To prevent having to re-encode all your video files in the future against high software costs I would always choose open file formats. That way any software maker or open source developer can create a video player for these files. My semi-related 50 cents. Cheers, Maarten Zeinstra -- Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra On Jul 13, 2013, at 21:53 , Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: A product which you might find useful is Wondersharehttp://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/#con3 which I have used from time to time for various video conversions. It has many more features, including some video editing capabilities. There is free trial version although it watermarks test outputs. It generally gets good reviews. Hope this help. Len On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:35 PM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: On a Mac, you can use the Flip4Mac plug-in. Not free. You can also use most high-end compression packages. I believe Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Encode (part of the Adobe Suites that include Premiere) can compress from Quicktime to WMV. Both are available for both Mac and PC for that matter. On Windows, I personally prefer TMPG Video Masterworks for most compression and conversion, including Quicktime to WMV. There may be other lower cost and even free options on Windows. I just don't know them off the top of my head. I believe it is possible to use Windows Movie Maker for instance. I would search Google for advise on this path. As Michael points out, compression/transcoding is a tricky business when quality and compatibility are important, especially if you don't have a calibrated setup. I do not advise the use of WMV for archival video, but that is your choice. Although it is high quality, and common, it is one of the most restricted codecs in use. I DO condone the use of Quicktime as long as the internal codec is a high-quality, cross platform standard such as MPEG4 or JPEG2000. Unlike WMV, Quicktime is only a file wrapper, not a codec, and can be played and manipulated on the major platforms with relative ease. It is much less likely one would ever be trapped by Quicktime, even if Apple drops support. I would suggest that you go ahead and convert for your system, but keep the incompatible original if you can. It may prove useful in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions? Best Regards, Sarah Gillis Assistant Registrar, Image Management Worcester Art Museum 55 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609 sarahgillis at worcesterart.org mailto:sarahgillis at worcesterart.org 508.799.4406 x3027 direct line: 508-793-4427 Our image reproduction application is now available online! Image Reproduction Request http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/collection_information.html Want to own your own custom reproduction of a Worcester Art Museum masterpiece? Visit our partner Rudinec Assoc. today! Request-A-Print http://www.requestaprint.net/worcester/index.php Introducing: Zazzle! Our online museum shop where you can purchase custom merchandise containing images from our permanent collection! Check it out today! Worceser Art Museum - Zazzle Shop http://www.zazzle.com/worcesterartmuseum ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
Just an FYI if you have more than a few videos/audio to convert then try http://zencoder.com. Their pricing is very reasonable http://zencoder.com/en/file-transcoding/pricing and they are experts in converting video formats. They don't have a web interface to upload jobs but it wouldn't be hard for a dev to write a quick script to push some files up to their service. Thanks, Glen On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions?
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
A product which you might find useful is Wondersharehttp://www.wondershare.com/mac-video-converter-ultimate/#con3 which I have used from time to time for various video conversions. It has many more features, including some video editing capabilities. There is free trial version although it watermarks test outputs. It generally gets good reviews. Hope this help. Len On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:35 PM, T Hopkins hoplist at hillmanncarr.com wrote: On a Mac, you can use the Flip4Mac plug-in. Not free. You can also use most high-end compression packages. I believe Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Encode (part of the Adobe Suites that include Premiere) can compress from Quicktime to WMV. Both are available for both Mac and PC for that matter. On Windows, I personally prefer TMPG Video Masterworks for most compression and conversion, including Quicktime to WMV. There may be other lower cost and even free options on Windows. I just don't know them off the top of my head. I believe it is possible to use Windows Movie Maker for instance. I would search Google for advise on this path. As Michael points out, compression/transcoding is a tricky business when quality and compatibility are important, especially if you don't have a calibrated setup. I do not advise the use of WMV for archival video, but that is your choice. Although it is high quality, and common, it is one of the most restricted codecs in use. I DO condone the use of Quicktime as long as the internal codec is a high-quality, cross platform standard such as MPEG4 or JPEG2000. Unlike WMV, Quicktime is only a file wrapper, not a codec, and can be played and manipulated on the major platforms with relative ease. It is much less likely one would ever be trapped by Quicktime, even if Apple drops support. I would suggest that you go ahead and convert for your system, but keep the incompatible original if you can. It may prove useful in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions? Best Regards, Sarah Gillis Assistant Registrar, Image Management Worcester Art Museum 55 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609 sarahgillis at worcesterart.org mailto:sarahgillis at worcesterart.org 508.799.4406 x3027 direct line: 508-793-4427 Our image reproduction application is now available online! Image Reproduction Request http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/collection_information.html Want to own your own custom reproduction of a Worcester Art Museum masterpiece? Visit our partner Rudinec Assoc. today! Request-A-Print http://www.requestaprint.net/worcester/index.php Introducing: Zazzle! Our online museum shop where you can purchase custom merchandise containing images from our permanent collection! Check it out today! Worceser Art Museum - Zazzle Shop http://www.zazzle.com/worcesterartmuseum ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ -- Living In Hong Kong Leonard Steinbach Visiting Fellow City University of Hong Kong Skype: leonard.steinbach 917 821 6207 852 9828 8174
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
On 12/07/2013, at 1:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions? Hello Sarah, I'm sorry that you are experiencing problems in converting the file. This is a common and frustrating problem. At a high level the issue is that QuickTime is the native video file format on the Macintosh and Windows Media is the native video file format for Windows PC's. Apple and Microsoft feel it is in their interests to limit interoperability of their two systems for commercial reasons - making it hard to use QuickTime as a source format for further processing in Windows and making it hard to output good quality WMV files on the Mac from native QuickTime sources. I note that both formats are proprietory and that neither format is recommended by the Library of Congress as an archival format for moving image preservation. But that is not the conversation that you want to have :-) If you wish to do this work yourself then you need to reach for 3rd party solutions: If you are on a Mac then Flip Factory Studio allows output of WMV files from QuickTime source: http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac/overview.htm If you are Windows then Adobe Media Encoder is one product that can ingest QuickTime files as a source and then output WMV - others might offer additional suggestions. While I am all for empowering people if this is a one-off it might be easier reach out to a local video post-production studio and have them do the work. If you get stuck please feel free to contact me off-list and I will do this for you pro-bono. All the best, Michael Michael Borthwick Consulting Pty. Ltd. GPO Box 1950, 380 Bourke Street, Melbourne Australia 3001 Level 1, 384 Bridge Road, Richmond Mobile Ph: + 61 418 345 800 http://www.michaelborthwick.com.au
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
On a Mac, you can use the Flip4Mac plug-in. Not free. You can also use most high-end compression packages. I believe Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Encode (part of the Adobe Suites that include Premiere) can compress from Quicktime to WMV. Both are available for both Mac and PC for that matter. On Windows, I personally prefer TMPG Video Masterworks for most compression and conversion, including Quicktime to WMV. There may be other lower cost and even free options on Windows. I just don't know them off the top of my head. I believe it is possible to use Windows Movie Maker for instance. I would search Google for advise on this path. As Michael points out, compression/transcoding is a tricky business when quality and compatibility are important, especially if you don't have a calibrated setup. I do not advise the use of WMV for archival video, but that is your choice. Although it is high quality, and common, it is one of the most restricted codecs in use. I DO condone the use of Quicktime as long as the internal codec is a high-quality, cross platform standard such as MPEG4 or JPEG2000. Unlike WMV, Quicktime is only a file wrapper, not a codec, and can be played and manipulated on the major platforms with relative ease. It is much less likely one would ever be trapped by Quicktime, even if Apple drops support. I would suggest that you go ahead and convert for your system, but keep the incompatible original if you can. It may prove useful in the future. cheers, tod On Jul 11, 2013, at 11:00 AM, Sarah Gillis wrote: Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions? Best Regards, Sarah Gillis Assistant Registrar, Image Management Worcester Art Museum 55 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609 sarahgillis at worcesterart.org mailto:sarahgillis at worcesterart.org 508.799.4406 x3027 direct line: 508-793-4427 Our image reproduction application is now available online! Image Reproduction Request http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/collection_information.html Want to own your own custom reproduction of a Worcester Art Museum masterpiece? Visit our partner Rudinec Assoc. today! Request-A-Print http://www.requestaprint.net/worcester/index.php Introducing: Zazzle! Our online museum shop where you can purchase custom merchandise containing images from our permanent collection! Check it out today! Worceser Art Museum - Zazzle Shop http://www.zazzle.com/worcesterartmuseum ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://mcn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Digital Preservation - Video Formats
Hello list-serv: We recently received a digital media video piece as a gift. The artist gave us two copies of what they considered as an archival format, QuickTime. Our digital asset preservation plan requires videos be saved as .wmv (Windows Media Video) file format. The artist granted permission for us to change the format to our archival standard. I am having a devil of a time trying to change the file format from one to the other. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? If so, any suggestions? Best Regards, Sarah Gillis Assistant Registrar, Image Management Worcester Art Museum 55 Salisbury Street Worcester, MA 01609 sarahgillis at worcesterart.org mailto:sarahgillis at worcesterart.org 508.799.4406 x3027 direct line: 508-793-4427 Our image reproduction application is now available online! Image Reproduction Request http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/collection_information.html Want to own your own custom reproduction of a Worcester Art Museum masterpiece? Visit our partner Rudinec Assoc. today! Request-A-Print http://www.requestaprint.net/worcester/index.php Introducing: Zazzle! Our online museum shop where you can purchase custom merchandise containing images from our permanent collection! Check it out today! Worceser Art Museum - Zazzle Shop http://www.zazzle.com/worcesterartmuseum
