As The Birds Fly South Is It Time To Start Thinking About Your Own Migration?

Migrating to the latest technology can be a massive headache; will it work with what we have, do I need to learn something new, will it be as good as they say but most vitally how long will this "new" last? That's why most people put off migrating until something dies.

Archive migration for producers, production companies and rights holders has become a very hot topic. Vast tape libraries are coming to the end of their lives; Beta, Digi-Beta, U-Matic and VHS had a rough shelf life of 20 years. After all these tapes are just rust stuck onto a bit of plastic (ok so maybe a bit simplistic). A dwindling supply of aging machines doesn’t help.

Although XD-Cam was designed as a 'Shoot & Archive' format the disc players are becoming scarcer. Early 'digital adopters' either have a collection of hard drives of which 12% will be dead or versions of LTO tapes that have been superseded and so harder to read.

For any archive to be effective you need not only to be able to find everything but also be able to retrieve it, today, tomorrow or in years to come. For that you will need to migrate or work with someone who can.

Keiren O'Brien, Film Locker CEO
www.filmlocker.com