If your organization needs to digitize a large quantity of videos or audio tapes, you’ll need to consider the challenges of at-scale content management.
In many cases, content management is the most labor-intensive (and expensive) component of video digitization. It’s also the most essential: If you can’t easily find the digital files associated with your legacy media — or physically locate the legacy media itself — the conversion project was a poor investment.
At Datarecovery.com, we’ve built a proprietary Digital Content Management System to help keep projects organized. By creating a specialized database for every case, we provide all of the relevant information you need for long-term archive organization.
Whether you’re digitizing a warehouse full of Betacam tapes, a mixed-format archive from decades of video production, or any other large quantity of analog media, our experts are ready to help. Call 1-800-237-4200 to discuss your project or read on to learn how our Digital Content Management System simplifies at-scale analog media conversion.
A Digital Content Management System for Video Professionals
As every project manager knows, too much information can cause as many problems as too little information. We build each iteration of our Digital Content Management System to fit the needs of individual clients. That means removing unnecessary search fields, adding new criteria, and ensuring that the information in each view is practically useful.
The database typically includes fields for standard criteria such as:
- Video origin (city, date, country, or other relevant details)
- Title, segment, and program information
- Media type (Betacam Digital, Betacam SP, audio, VHS, etc.)
- Audio contents (input manually or through automated transcription)
- Exact location of digital files and overlay copies
- Exact location of physical media
Our database can utilize any number of proprietary criteria, enabling project managers to fully customize every field for better search results.
Entry fields for adding a tape to a database.
For example, a recent television project required fields for guests who appeared on each program. By recording this information during conversion, we were able to provide the client with a simple way to find all appearances for certain guests — and to organize those appearances by date, video length, and other parameters.
Take Control of Your Video Archives
In many cases, archival videos aren’t initially well organized. Finding a specific tape can be practically impossible without extensive manual review. Put simply, if you’re trying to locate decades-old media, you might need much more information than the title of the tape.
The Datarecovery.com Digital Content Management System can address that challenge with a variety of methods, depending on the source media and the project goals. For example:
- Sports broadcasts can be organized by milestone moments, player stats, or by broadcaster. Any fields can be hidden from search results to provide a more streamlined view for users.
- Advanced machine learning can transcribe voices on news broadcasts, allowing users to search by keywords, then narrow those results by date, program, or other parameters.
- Worship services can be organized by subject, references to scripture, or location.
- Custom APIs can provide search results to existing databases or other software for streamlined cross-platform searches.
We provide custom databases as part of our video digitization services at no additional charge. Our goal is to eliminate unnecessary work for your team by handling content management onsite — while providing high-quality digital files that are ready for broadcast or reproduction.
Instantly Locate Media from an At-Scale Video Conversion Project
The Datarecovery.com Digital Content Management System features advanced search features utilizing a simple AND/OR logic operator. The search function is intuitive — users simply enter as many or as few search fields as they’d like, then receive the results — but extremely fast and powerful.
The search results screen provides all of the information needed to track down digital copies of specific tapes or to present a high-level overview of media contents.
A sample view of the results for a basic search.
A log keeps track of all changes, including the exact times and dates when each tape’s information was accessed (viewed or updated) within the database. In certain applications, the access logs can aid in compliance with security and privacy regulations. It’s also a great organizational feature: Digitization teams can use the access logs for clarity when handling larger projects.
Detail view for an individual tape.
No More Video Archive Spreadsheets
Experienced video professionals understand the challenges of working with spreadsheets and other non-specialized tools.
When a video digitization project includes thousands of tapes, spreadsheets can become unwieldy and susceptible to data integrity issues. Double entries, accidental overwrites, and other errors can quickly compromise your archive.
Spreadsheets aren’t designed for digital media organization, and most commercial databases have serious limitations that can impact archive projects at scale. Our goal was to design a system that addresses those problems — without sacrificing speed, security, or ease-of-use.
A Simple Way to Organize Digitized Media
The Datarecovery.com Digital Content Management System provides instant access to all the information you need (and nothing you don’t need). Our technicians input every field during the digitization process, greatly reducing the burden on your team.
After your project is complete, the system’s intuitive interface helps you build a strategy for long-term organization. You can add new tapes to the database or update information in a matter of seconds without any technical knowledge — and without wading through massive spreadsheets.
To learn more, schedule a video conversion quote online or call us at 1-800-237-4200 to discuss your next project.
