Category Archives: Online

2013: Digital, Tape and HD

Posted on January 8, 2013 by | Leave a comment

2012 saw impressive developments across the film and television industry. YouTube and Netflix consolidated their positions in the market, Shine International relocated HQ to London and Sony launched two 4k cameras. But what does 2013 have in store?

  • Digital delivery is only going to get bigger. It maybe stating the obvious, but the amount of clients opting for file-based solutions has risen by around 35%. We expect this to rise further in 2013. We have already invested £600k in new kit to increase capacity so we can satisfy the need.
  • But the demand for tape is still growing too. In fact 2012 saw an approximate rise in demand of 25-30% for tape services at JCA.  Hence we are still continuing to invest and expand our teams and kit to support this.  This doesn’t look to drop either, as certain clients such as football distributors still prefer to use tape in some instances. It is true that one digital workflow process would be easier, but tape still has its advantages and it’s not going to disappear in 2013.
  • With VOD platforms like Netflix really thriving, content owners will be keen to digitise content libraries even further in order to maximise ROI.
  • HD will continue to boom. We have seen a huge surge in the amount of HD content entering our pipeline here at JCA, with additional SD material also coming in for HD remastering. We only expect this to rise.
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Digitising medical history for the Wellcome Trust

Posted on July 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment
video encoding, transcoding, film restoration, digital restoration, hd formats, wellcome trust, archive, digital archive, digital content library, jca, wellcome collection

Before digital restoration 

video encoding, transcoding, film restoration, digital restoration, hd formats, wellcome trust, archive, digital archive, digital content library, jca
After digital restoration

It is not just broadcasters and production companies that qualify as media content owners. In this digital age, organisations of all types are keen to utilise video, in both tape and file format. Some develop new content and need to distribute it online, whilst others have content siting on reels of tape doing nothing but collecting dust. However, more and more of these content owners are now realising that this content can be restored and digitised for today’s digital savvy audiences.

JCA did a project with the Wellcome Trust, a global charity committed to improving human and animal health and funding innovative biomedical research. It wanted to make its archive of historical medical videos digitally up-to-date and available online to the education and research communities as well as the general public. Its film collection is home to a vast amount of archival footage covering aspects of medicine, health and social care provision and practice. Content includes footage of WW1 military hospitals treating ‘shell-shock’, early surgery and public information films from the British government.

In order to make this historical footage available online, the Wellcome Trust selected JCA to restore and digitise the range of content belonging to the Trust, the BFI and the CIO, which came in many different formats of all ages. Here at JCA we first had to treat any damaged tape. We could then transfer the film to HD and SD formats. Offering an end-to-end solution from the initial appraisal of the film and video material, to providing a suite of digital services, we were able to take the reels of tape and create high quality online files. We worked closely with the trust throughout the process including transfer of video media and selected film elements. The final step was digital media serving, which included the transcription of all media segments and delivery to educational institutions via accelerated FTP.

Check out the finished work below. There are hundreds of digitised, free and easy to access programmes available at: http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/wellcomefilm.htm

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JCA restores classic British films for Film4

Posted on October 21, 2011 by | Leave a comment

One of the benefits of digitisation is that it provides content/rights owners with the opportunity to restore and re-master classic content which it can then sell to broadcasters for new audiences to enjoy.

Our recent partnership with Film4 to re-master the 1986 British comedy classic Rita, Sue and Bob Too, along with other titles including Brassed Off in true High Definition is a core reflection of this.

We have worked with Film4 on many HD restoration projects in the past, which include removing all dirt, scratches and occasionally continuity errors. We were thrilled to be an integral part of these new film projects for Film4’s international distribution channel.

During this process the film elements are scanned at 2k via our Arriscan Scanner into a DPX file sequence. The DPX files are then graded to the clients’ specification  and then rendered into the file. The restoration artists utilise a vast array of restorative tools ranging from automated passes through to frame by frame hand painting – whatever the project requires, before the grain and sharpness treatments are applied.

For Rita Sue and Bob Too we were able to access the original negative. Whilst this made the grading process more challenging it did allow us to deliver the film, as it has never been seen before.

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Posted in Business Development, Company News, Media Management, Online, Television

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