Vintage Cloud Announces New Archive Digitization And Indexing Services

Film archive digitization specialist Vintage Cloud has announced a new service designed for companies who want to monetize their valuable archive assets but who do not have, or wish to invest in, the equipment or personnel necessary to achieve it.

As well as digitization of archive analog assets, indexing and the generation of metadata are also available to customers who have already digitized their archive, but who have not yet extracted the data from it that will maximize its value.

Peter Englesson, CEO of Vintage Cloud, said: "Vintage Cloud was created by film people for film people, and we share a background in film editing, cinematography, sound engineering and film production.

"We know film, and that means we can provide all the expertise needed for any size of archive to help customers derive the maximum value from their film content."

The new service is based on Vintage Cloud Steenbeck, the only system capable of digitizing separate image and audio at the same time at up to 4K resolution and up to 60 fps. It is therefore 3-5 times less costly per digitized hour than other systems while delivering unprecedented image quality. Recognizing the nature of much archive material, Vintage Cloud Steenbeck is highly tolerant of broken perforations, fragile splices, warped and brittle film, and is also capable of handling shrunken film via a special capstan sprocket.

Englesson continued: "We can take care of an entire project, delivering maximum results for minimum cost. There's a lot to think about in undertaking a project to transfer analog files to digital – but we've used our considerable experience and expertise in making the investment in creating the optimum tools for the job."

Digitization is, however, only part of the service. The all-in-one system has now been enhanced by the introduction of Smart Indexing. Vintage Cloud developed this software that uses AI and machine learning to automatically generate a load of new metadata for easy search and categorization. For material that has already been digitized, Smart Indexing is available as a standalone app for automatic content tagging– increasing the monetization potential of assets while saving time.

Englesson added: "Using Smart Indexing's automatic tagging helps categorize and curate content, meaning that revenue can be generated from film assets quickly, easily and seamlessly. The keyframes generated in Smart Indexing are an easy and quick way for users to make sure their film assets are found by the right buyers. They also enable customers to search through their own archives and organize their libraries."

Smart Indexing is capable of delivering a tagging result in a fraction of a second. AI allows Smart Indexing to automatically recognize over 11,000 objects, scenes and events with an accuracy that is equal to, or better, than that of a human. It can even recognize faces (including the emotions portrayed by those faces). Smart Indexing can distinguish 'known' faces, or the user can add names to faces and those faces, with their associated data, are added to the Smart Indexing database such that they are automatically recognizable in other assets.


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