SUNScholar/Digitisation/Digital Formats

Multimedia

Converter software

For Microsoft

• http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/blog/12633/an-overview-of-audio-and-video-transcoding
• http://www.nchsoftware.com/index.html
• http://winff.org

For Linux

• http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/OggConvert
• http://www.linuxrising.org/transmageddon
• http://programmer-art.org/projects/arista-transcoder

Open Codecs

• http://xiph.org
• http://www.webmproject.org
• http://code.google.com/speed/webp
• http://playfreedom.org

Audio

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_codecs

Video

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_codecs

Images

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_graphics_file_formats

Container Formats

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats

Documents

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Document_Foundation
• http://documentfreedom.org
• http://www.pdfa.org
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A
• http://officeshots.org

Comments

Dear Hilton,

I would advise that you adopt open (i.e. non-propriety) standards, as these have the best chance of remaining readable in the long-term future.
Propriety formats are dependent on the continuing existence of the firm who markets them, as well as the continued support by this firm, even if they continue to exist.
This is in my opinion very risky.

For documents I am aware of an ISO standard that is targeted at archival, known as PDF/A (see www.pdfa.org).

For audio and video the situation is less developed, and there are as far as I know no standards specifically for archival.
In both cases I would recommend that data be saved without lossy compression, and again that open standards be sought.
Hence mp3 and WMV should be avoided, both because they are based on lossy  compression and are are propriety.
The audio format FLAC on the other hand is open and does not employ lossy compression.

I hope this is of help,
Best regards,
Thomas Niesler.

------------------------------------------------
Prof. Thomas Niesler
Digital Signal Processing Group
Department of Electronic Engineering
University of Stellenbosch
Private Bag X1, Stellenbosch 7602, South Africa
Phone: +27 21 8084118
Fax:   +27 21 8084981
Email: trn@dsp.sun.ac.za

Microfiche

• http://www.fctec.co.za

Software

• http://www.fsf.org and http://www.opensource.org

Data Sets

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sql
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_relational_database_management_systems
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_database_tools

Engineering drawings

See: http://www.opendesign.com

Metadata

Click on the heading above.

Language

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langauge_codes
• http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php

Digitisation Guidelines

Media type	Resolution	Bit depth	Enhancements Allowed
Printed text	300 dpi	Bitonal	Sharpening, descreening, cropping, deskewing, despeckling
Rare/ damaged printed text	400 dpi	8-gray or 24 colour	Contrast stretching; Minimal adjustments for tone and colour
Book illustrations	400 - 600 dpi with enhancement	8-gray or 24 colour; Bitonal	Contrast stretching; Minimal adjustments for tone and colour; Descreen/ rescreen, sharpen
Manuscripts	300 - 500 dpi with enhancement	8-gray or 24 colour	Contrast stretching; Minimal adjustments for tone and colour
Maps and other oversized items	300 - 400 dpi	8-gray or 24 colour	Contrast stretching; Minimal adjustments for tone and colour
Graphic Art	400 - 600 dpi	8-bit/ channel internal reduction	Contrast stretching; Minimal adjustments for tone and colour

Please note

• All archival material to be digitised in tiff format
• Tiff copy together with derivated png or any additional copies to be submitted to SUNScholar
• Document provenance metadata:
  • dc.description.provenance e.g. Original scanned in at 600 dpi, 100% DigiBook 10000 RGB colour, downsized to 840 pixels in width, resolution 250. Web version done automatically by PhotoShop 7 software. Downloading time approx. 26 seconds. Date done March - April 2007.

Common Closed Digital Formats

See: http://patentabsurdity.com and http://en.swpat.org

Documents

All the Microsoft document formats are closed.

This is a huge problem for digital preservation.

• http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/intro/intro.shtml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Office_Open_XML_and_OpenDocument

Multimedia

All the Microsoft media formats are closed.

This is a huge problem for digital preservation.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Video

Other closed media formats

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_formats_closed_by_software_patents
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3 (Lossy audio codec, many patent trolls)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding (Lossy audio codec, many patent trolls)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpeg4 (Lossy video codec, many patent trolls)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg (Lossy image codec, many patent trolls)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged_Image_File_Format (Lossless image codec, many patent trolls)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Video (Closed format multimedia container, many patent trolls)