ACA 2022 Pre-Conference Workshop: "Every Last Byte: Making the Most of Access Copies in Archives"

ACA 2022 - Pre-Conference Workshop

"Every Last Byte: Making the Most of Access Copies in Archives"

When: June 14, 2022 via Zoom

Time: 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM PT / 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET

Capacity: 100 participants

Outline

This workshop will include of demos to show the exact interfaces of programs being discussed, as well as live demos of ffmpeg for creating x265 files using graphics hardware. The following topics will be covered: 

• Intro/why do access copies matter?
• (Briefly) looking back at an exciting decade for video technology
• Codecs & Containers
• Needs, Wants, and Dreams: understanding the priority order for video quality
• Demo - Questions/Open discussion time
• Demo 2 (will be more specific to analog video transfers)
• Looking ahead at the future of video compression - Questions again/close

Learning Objectives

The objective of this workshop is to provide information and interactive demos that will make participants feel more confident in the choices they face when compressing files. Bitrate, resolution, color detail, and the video content itself are all factors that an A/V Preservation professional will need to balance in creating access copies that are disk, network, and time efficient.

In this workshop, participants at any level of experience with video can learn more about the tools available for video compression, the factors that affect a video file's size, and how to specifically measure performance of a certain codec or configuration. The tools/technologies featured in the workshop include: ffmpeg, x265, AV1 (with discussion of the Alliance for Open Media), CRF (constant rate factor) encoding, and both the PSNR and VMAF codec efficiency measurement tools. 

This workshop will focus on free and open-source software and participants on Windows, macOS, or Linux will be able to follow along.

Workshop Instructor

Anthony Martinez Cuervo is a student at Toronto Metropolitan University's Film & Photography Preservation & Collections Management Program (graduating Summer 2022). Anthony works at Digital Treasury Group in Toronto, ON. as a student resident and media transfer operator.