Subjects covered on the day were as follows:

Archive restoration: Content Owners Discussion

The opening session at the Archive Forum brought together archive content owners to talk through how they choose and assess different restoration facilities. The session discussed the different stages involved in getting content restored, how to handle fragile film during restoration and the timescales and costs associated with getting this irreplaceable and delicate archive content scanned, restored and distributed.

Archive restoration: Live Demo

This was a demonstration of archive content being restored reveals what happens during the initial auto-passes, removing artefacts and noise prior to any further manual restoration. This latter stage involves frame-by-frame fixing; removing film rips, scratches and stabilising sections that couldn’t be adequately repaired and enhanced automatically.

Managing archives: Production Companies Discussion

There’s a wide array of different approaches to managing the long-term storage of your rushes and production assets, and no right or wrong way of doing things. Each method has its own pros and cons and differing levels of cost. This session provides a chance for production companies to talk about how they look after their valuable archives and what might be considered best practise for taking care of archives.

New forms of archive: Technologies panel

This session looks at the latest technology developments in archiving and archive asset management. The aim of the session is to explain what these products could offer production companies and content owners and how all the different archiving options slot into different production workflows.

Archive restoration: Facilities House Discussion

This session centres on a series of case studies from facilities handling, scanning and restoring archive footage. Each facility reveals the different automatic and creative processes involved in restoring archive footage used in some of the recent productions they’ve worked on.

Cloud-based archiving

One of the fast-emerging options for content archiving is utilising the cloud. With a fast, secure connection, cloud-based archives offer an ever-expandable pool of storage with no capital investment in having to create and maintain your own archiving systems. Cloud-based services also provide a host of additional useful functionality, and enable a transparent means for you to view and understand your archiving costs. In this panel, the leading suppliers of cloud-based archiving and facilities utilising their services explain what they offer and how these types of services might benefit you.

Post-production panel

How are post-production companies taking care of their clients’ archives? While production companies are responsible for managing and maintaining their own archives, post-production houses are often the initial creators of those archives. A post house will collect together the assets that make up the client’s archive, and initially look after this content, at least while the production is still ‘live’. What happens next and how post-production houses liaise with their clients to ensure they are utilising the most appropriate archiving methods are under discussion in the final session of the Archive Forum.