APTN Library and Arkemedia to create world's largest digital commercial library

APTN Library has selected Arkemedia for a major digitisation and e-commerce project.
When completed, the system aims to become the world's largest digital commercial library, with thousands of hours of footage available for viewing.
Christopher O'Hearn, Head of Content at APTN said the APTN-Arkemedia project would break new ground for digital video archives. "Not only will this be a massive library, we believe it will also be the most advanced in terms of the tools it offers to our clients," he added.
APTN Library clients will be able to view all digitised material and then complete their own edits using a browser-based editing tool. This will allow them to request footage using online ordering and payment.
Orders will be downloadable in a variety of encoded formats up to 1.5 Mbit/s or on tape in full broadcast quality. Full-quality point-to-point IP delivery will be offered as a later phase.
Nick Evansky, Director of Services and Technology for Associated Press International, said: "AP's continued goal is to make all its media available to all its content strands. A major attraction is Arkemedia's architecture, which is wholly based on open and non-proprietary IT Technologies. This makes integration with existing multimedia technology platforms and systems across the AP very straightforward."
Work on the project will commence immediately and it is scheduled for completion in Q3 2005. Around 1000 hours of digitised material will be available at launch, including the highlights of APTN's archive and represented collections that cover events back to 1896.
The archive will then grow by around 2000 hours each year as new content is added from the daily news, entertainment and sports output of APTN, the world's leading video news agency. Content in the existing historical archive will be digitised as it is ordered by clients. All video will be stored in full broadcast-quality resolution from which other resolutions and formats will be generated, including viewing copies on the Library website.
Vincenzo Roberti, Managing Director and founder of Arkemedia welcomed the relationship with APTN. "We're very excited about APTN's vision for its new commercial library operations. In this context, the Arkemedia platform really is an 'enabling technology' which will profoundly improve the customer experience, from research to fulfilment almost irrespective of market, language and location," he said.
(GB)