Elektrofilm, Sun create archive
System geared toward digital preservation
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Official announcement is slated for the NAB confab in Las Vegas.
The Elektrofilm Digital Media Environment (DME) which is housed at Elektrofilm's Burbank facility, uses Sun's storage, servers, software and services with an archive database designed by Elektrofilm.
Elektrofilm plans to offer the DME tas a service provided in-house, at least for now. Company's prexy Frank Donner said the DME already meets MPAA standards for security.
Though digital filmmaking promised an end to concerns about fading dyes and unstable film stocks, it has actually exacerbated problems with movie archiving and preservation.
Film, carefully stored and handled, can last centuries. Yet there is no generally accepted means of preserving digital camera footage, and existing storage methods can start losing data after just a few years. Some have had problems in less than a year.
The Motion Picture Academy's Science & Technology council saw enough danger to warn the studios that some movies could be lost, especially "born digital" films such as "300" and "Miami Vice."
The studios, major libraries and archives and the Sci-Tech council are aware of the problem but until now no commercial solution was in the offing.
Phil Feiner, former prexy of Pacific Title & Art Studio and an expert on digital archving issues, said "(Sun and Elektrofilm) are first to market with something that is a viable solution right now. Other than that, there is nobody."
Tom Inglefield, Sun's chief technologist, digital media, said the movie business is "a perfect market" for Sun.
"It takes lots of storage, lots of processing power, and standards-based applications, because they've been stuck in proprietary applications and proprietary video file formats for years."
Sun has been selling archiving systems for television but "In film, you're talking about orders-of-magnitude larger file sizes," he said.
Elektrofilm execs said they have agreed to work with the Academy committees that are working on archiving standards and are already consulting with the studios to ensure the DME meets their needs.
Elektrofilm, which opened in April 2006, is a digital media provider that does digital restoration, high-end DVD work and other digital services.
It was designed from the ground up to also do data migration, a major portion of any digital archiving system.
If the system is a success, Sun and Elektrofilm hope to extend its market to other markets, including education and medicine.
