Schaal wrote:I'm wondering how this Cybermen thing will start out tonight.

it turned out *good* in my opinion, the most enjoyable new who I've seen I think, partly because of the leisurely pace and partly because of trigger, who surprised me. but yes, heavy steals from spare parts. did you enjoy?

My opinions are based on what the archive staff have been led to believe. What are they telling the designers? The main study being bandied about was the Linden et al paper regarding the British Library's digital archive. From what I recall, expense was seen as the main factor limiting the size of the digital library at BBC Scotland, though you probably know more about this than I do.
The BBC's infamous internal democracy, where all deparments are allowed to chose their preferred formats and equipment, is going to make the digital archive a nightmarish project. The amount of different videotape formats in the building at the present is terrifying. When departments start choosing their own edit-suites in isolation, and upgrading and replacing them without telling the archives, things are going to get pretty 'interesting'. When you couple this with the fact that, historically speaking, programme production staff are incapable of generating any sort of meaningful or useful metadata, broadcast-storage is facing a very 'interesting' future. My personal opinion is that the BBC will succeed in storing its entire output 'in perpetuity', as it is legally bound to. Whether it will be able to be searched or retrieved to any useful extent is anyone's guess.

dave-sidca wrote:My opinions are based on what the archive staff have been led to believe. What are they telling the designers?

Well, the designers are issued with a basic spec. with which they design the system around - I have not read this though as it is no doubt extremely dull.

The amount of different videotape formats in the building at the present is terrifying. When departments start choosing their own edit-suites in isolation, and upgrading and replacing them without telling the archives, things are going to get pretty 'interesting'.

Yeah, I suppose they'll just need to adapt. As far as the system is concerned, the different filtetypes are all "wrapped". It is actually my job to ensure that all of the different departments integrate properly as they are all effectively a part of one big server.

historically speaking, programme production staff are incapable of generating any sort of meaningful or useful metadata, broadcast-storage is facing a very 'interesting' future.

Ha! Yeah, we are dealing with this just now.

Whether it will be able to be searched or retrieved to any useful extent is anyone's guess.

There will be a good, comprehensive search facility.

When I said earlier "all of the new material based in Scotland is now going to be archived to a large digital storage system.." I should really have said all material which is chosen to be archived, as not much is actually chosen to be archived.

That probably all sounds a bit vague, but I think there's a limit to what I can say.

fiery jack:
did you enjoy?

I hope it makes its way to youtube at some point today!

davidpye wrote:Despite what most americans think, the BBC are actually complete cocks and not really very good at much.

The occasional wildlife documentary maybe, radio 3 sometimes, but other than that, spoon fed dross in the most part.

I would utterly disagree with that. It's easy to take the BBC for granted. Are there other international media organisations you prefer?