Danish Film Institute Taps Front Porch Digital

Front
Porch Digital, Inc. announced
that the Danish Film Institute (DFI) has purchased a SAMMAsolo G4 HD
single-stream migration solution, a DIVArchive V7.0 CSM system, and a
DIVAdirector media asset management (MAM) system for digitizing, archiving,
preserving, and managing its legacy video archive.

Copenhagen-based DFI is the national institution responsible for preserving
Denmark’s film heritage.

"The
fact that Danish cinemas now work with digital files rather than 35mm films,
coupled with the government mandate for producers to deposit their work at DFI
for preservation, meant our servers filled up quickly, so we needed an
immediate solution to handle our increasing amount of digital material,"
said Jacob Trock, head of the DFI archive. "We invested in a smaller SAMMA and DIVArchive solution that would allow
us to get started in proper digital archiving and expand easily as we are able.
DIVArchive and DIVAdirector give us a complete professional, integrated
archiving solution and a platform for easy access to holdings within our
organization."

DFI is in the midst of integrating its
SAMMAsolo unit into its preservation workflow. Ultimately, DFI will rely on
SAMMA’s encoding architecture and integrated quality-control reporting
capabilities to ensure optimal encoding as videotapes are ingested. DFI is
using SAMMA to upscale SD video to HD files for distribution in digital cinema
packages, and testing has gone well.

DIVArchive V7.0, which DFI is in the late
phase of testing, features Front Porch Digital’s new open Archive eXchange
Format (AXF) technology, which will help DFI to fulfill its mandate for
optimal, reliant, and efficient open-standard archiving in accordance with OAIS
rules. DFI’s DIVArchive will house all of the institution’s legacy video
masters, trailers, digital cinema packages, distribution masters, and audio
files, as well as all documentaries, short films, and feature films that are
delivered to the DFI film archive for preservation. DFI has archived more than
3,000 items totaling more than 60TB of data within the first six months of
using the system.

DIVArchive uses LTO technology, which
provides a more affordable storage solution than spinning servers without
compromising reliability. DIVArchive allows DFI to have its entire archive in
near-line storage, reducing the need for further investment in larger servers.
DIVArchive also gives DFI a way to ingest files from outsourced,
large-scale digitization projects with minimal effort – a time-saving benefit
that cuts down on labor costs. Internal DFI users access files through the
DIVAdirector MAM system.

"Archiving
into DIVArchive has now been integrated into our workflow when handling files,
and the great advantage is that people in-house can serve themselves,"
said Trock. "For example,
DIVAdirector gives our festival promoters easy access to trailers and
electronic press kits. At the same time, we can control and limit that access
so that the promoters can get only what they need without risking loss of any
other data."

"Front
Porch Digital products are making it possible for DFI to sustain a broad
migrate-and-manage workflow, and as one of the early adopters of AXF, DFI will
be able to ensure its archive easily serves its stakeholders for generations to
come," said Rino Petricola, SVP and MD of Front Porch Digital
International. "DIVArchive is designed
specifically to handle video files and the management challenges that come with
them, so it is especially well-suited to DFI’s stringent requirements for
maintaining Denmark’s national video heritage."