Sony and Memnon Archiving Services to collaborate on digital preservation

Memnon Archiving Services, a leading digital preservation provider, is responsible for digitizing, restoring and preserving more than two million hours of audiovisual archives for numerous broadcasters and cultural institutions around the world.

At NAB 2015, Sony announced its collaboration with Memnon Archiving Services, one of the leading digital preservation providers, responsible for digitizing, restoring and preserving more than two million hours of audiovisual archives for numerous broadcasters and cultural institutions around the world.

Sony and Memnon's Media Lifecycle Services will jointly offer their technology, expertise and industrial workflow mastery to clients, drawing on their combined experience in delivering large-scale digital preservation projects involving audio, video and film content.

Memnon has clients such as the Danish DR corporation, The British Library, the National Library of France and the Indiana University System. For its part, Sony converts and digitally distributes more than 150 million files for organizations such as BBC Worldwide and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Michel Merten, CEO of Memnon Archiving Services, said: "The collaboration will combine our experience in the management and digital preservation of large volumes of sensitive content of any type (including audio, video and film) with Sony's deep experience and expert knowledge in audiovisual and broadcast technologies. Our global project delivery capacity will assist clients as they embark on the indispensable task of preserving their most valuable asset: content."

The need for organizations to preserve content digitally and on a large scale has accelerated due to the continuous physical deterioration of content carriers, as well as constant changes in media interoperability and technology. The reduced costs of digital storage and the development of long-term stable digital storage formats, such as Sony's Optical Disc Archive, have led many organizations to consider large-scale digitization projects. Similarly, increased asset utilization and new marketing opportunities have improved the business situation for many clients, making this investment a priority.

“Our research suggests that only 21% of broadcasters have completed the process of digitizing tape libraries and that standard organizations that have not digitized content will store more than 100,000 old tapes on-site,” said Baku Morikuni, Head of Media Lifecycle Service at Sony. "As a consequence, many content owners have assets that are depreciating and, at the same time, opportunities to reuse and monetize digital content, once accessible, have increased."

Sony introduced Media Lifecycle Services in August 2014 to help content owners protect and maximize the value of legacy content assets. Sony's managed service provides a single point of contact that helps customers not only preserve and maximize the commercial value of content immediately, but also continue to develop assets for the future.

"There is no doubt that now is the time to face this challenge, however, all good digital preservation projects must have proven technological and operational expertise. We believe that large-scale digitization is a unique discipline that requires industrial processes and methodologies to achieve high efficiency and consistent quality. We are delighted that the collaboration with Memnon will extend that experience to even more clients," concludes Baku Morikuni.