1. Dance Preservation &
Digitization Project:
Building a VHS digitizing
station
Bay Area Video Coalition &
Dance Heritage Coalition

2. Dance Preservation & Digitization Project
- 3 regional hubs (SF, NYC, DC)
- Formats
- Workflow
- Archive or Dance company  Hub  Repository
- Case study: design and build of VHS station
in Washington, DC.

3. Brief overview of digitization/
storage workflow

4. DPDP Digitizing Station in DC
Roles in project
o Project manager: basic overview design,
described needs, purchased and worked
with local engineer to refurbish deck;
mediation between admin and tech. In this
case, chose deck model and brand, TBC.
o Video engineer: installation, training on
monitor calibration and waveform &
vectorscope, signal path documentation.
o Systems administrator, installing server
software, advising on workstation workflow.
o Leadership, articulating vision, fundraising.

5. Preparation
•
•
Resources at BAVC, history of digitization /
preferred equipment already; knew what we
needed.
How did the station hardware fit into our digital
preservation workflow?
o Technicians creating SIPs acting as
“producers” in the OAIS framework
o Filesystem consistency
o Capture card and delivery format(s)

6. Station design
• Finding decks for purchase: eBay, some engineers
o Professional: Sony SVO-5800; Panasonic AG-DS555P; JVCBRS711U
o Consumer: Panasonic PV-V4021; Toshiba M785; Panasonic
AG-2530P Mitsubishi-HSU500
•
•
What are important components when looking for a deck?
o BNC versus RCA
o S-Video vs. Component vs. Composite
o Balanced audio
“Know what you don’t know”

7. This perspective..
Informs this decision
• Formats in the collection; the most
need based on selection policies/
collection assessment
• Playback deck choice: which format?
• Large number of EP or LP recordings
• Playback deck, consumer,
professional or both?
• Need for uncompressed or specific
target file format
• Choice of capture card.
• Need for multiple playback decks
• Consider purchasing a rack; video
switcher or patch bay
• Need to output multiple formats at once • Talk with engineer about video
(versus transcoding post-digitization)
processor
• Need for adjustment of luminance and
chrominance (highly recommended)
• Purchase and training on waveform &
vectorscope, and time base corrector.

8. Working with engineers as an archivist
What should you ask of your engineer?
•
•
•
Deck refurbishment or purchase
Recommendations
o
Recommended workflow, inspection practices.
Training
o
o
Waveform & vectorscope
CRT monitor calibration

9. Training
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Detailed guidelines & equipment manuals
In-person review and test tape(s)
Waveform & vectorscope: a large focus
Cleaning and deck maintenance
o
When to outsource / when to clean in-house
Looking for artifacts
Metadata
QCTools project; intention to make workflow
and metadata open-source & easier
A/V Artifact Atlas:
http://preservation.bavc.org/artifactatlas/index.php/A/V_
Artifact_Atlas

10. Example budget

11. Example signal path

13. Handout contents
- List of video engineers, largely sourced from
Tim Vitale’s AIC list and BAVC, sample
budget, sample wiring diagram, example
decks BAVC has used or does use.
- Keep analog video engineers in business
- DIY digitization is possible, if not preferred,
especially for VHS format.

14. Thank you!
laurens@bavc.org
@laurensx
@bavcpreserve
www.bavc.org/preservation
Bay Area Video Coalition &
Dance Heritage Coalition