Report of the Library Technology Officer

April 2003

Vanderbilt Television News Archive

Off-air recording

A total of 197 abstracts were added to the database this month, including both current programs as well as older material where the abstracts were missing from the collection.

In addition to the regular evening news broadcasts and specials recorded, the archive recorded 2160 hours of coverage of the war in Iraq. In addition to the usual networks covered, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, the Archive also recorded the Fox News coverage of the war. The initial recording of the news included full twenty-four hour coverage of each of these networks, and included a significant amount of non-news programming. Only a manual scanning process will be able to identify non-relevant material. We have already been able to eliminate 426 hours of non-news material from this body of material.

Web server access

905 new customers registered on the website
78,148 total entries in activity log
14,339 views of the home page
5,272 views of the search page
8,092 searches executed
4,077 Calenadars viewed
20,547individual records viewed
8,887 program listings viewed

Abstracting and Database Maintenance

Loan Requests filled

View the Cumulative Table of Statistics for the Archive's activities.

Publicity

At the Coalition for Networked Information Spring Meeting in Washington, DC, Paul and Marshall gave a break-out meeting presentation on the Vanderbilt Television News Archive and its status toward becoming a digital archive.

Personnel

The Archive employed two student workers during the 2002/2003 Academic Year, Sarah and Alex. With the end of the semester, the complete their work with the Archive until the Fall. We appreciate their efforts.

NSF Grant Report

Steve Davis continues to digitize the Senate Watergate Hearings. During the month of April he finished digitizing another 20 hours of testimony. With this addition, the Television News Archive has 58 hours of the Senate Watergate Hearings digitized into MPEG-2 files, transcoded in to Real Media Files and stored on DVD-R discs.

In the pursuit of the ideal encoding board, we continue to look at various options. Steve ran tests on the DCM card by VITEC. Of all the cards he tested it was his least favorite. On a positive note, the card included editing software that solved the problem of joining two cuts together accurately.

Library Technology Officer Activities

The focus of the technical work this month relates to the design and implementation of a digitizing station for the Archive. This digitizing station will be able to record new programs digitally and to convert existing videotapes in the collection to digital form. We have now completed the design of the digitizing station, made the final selection of the hardware and software components, implemented a prototype, and performed real-world testing. We are preparing for a full deployment of the ten of these digitizing stations, which will allow the Archive to capture news programs for the collection digitally instead of recording onto videotape.

Two Dell Optiplex computer workstations were ordered with funds from the NSF grant to be used as prototypes for the TV News digitizing station. We had previously used funds from this grant to obtain a number of different MPEG-2 encoding cards and TV reception cards. Earlier work centered on evaluating the components individually. This month's efforts focused on integrating the components into a multi-function digitizing station.

A key component of the digitizing stations for the TV News Archive involves the card that will be used for the reception of the television signal. While a number of cards can perform basic TV reception features, few have the video output capabilities required for this project. We have been working with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 (model 990), with good results. The only other TV card on the market that provides the needed video output connector is the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Video Card, AGP 4X, 64MB DDR. Marshall acquired one of these units for testing. Although the TV reception capabilities worked well, the card proved unsuitable for our needs since its video output signal included the image of the entire desktop environment, not just the television window. With the elimination of the ATI card, it appears that the Hauppauge WinTV is the only PC-based television reception card available that meets all our requirements.

The TV News digitizing station consists of a standard desktop computer plus a number of add-in video components and supporting software. One of the largest challenges involved with designing this workstation has been getting all the components to work well together. The initial design of the station involved the use of three add-in cards-an MPEG-2 encoder, an MPEG-2 decoder for on-screen preview, and the TV reception card. We developed a simplified a 2-card design that makes use of the video input of the TV card to support on-screen preview, eliminating the need for the MPEG-2 decoding card. The earlier, more complex, configuration of the station was plagued with hardware conflicts that often let to locking up the operating system. With the new simpler design, the prototype system now runs smoothly and reliably. No system lockups have occurred during the on-site testing of the prototype system.

Building on work completed in the last several months, Marshall completed the assembly of a digitizing workstation prototype for the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. This workstation includes a set of hardware and software components that allows it to perform off-the-air digital recording of news programs, digitizing of material on video tape, transcoding MPEG-2 files into RealMedia format, and transfer of digital content onto DVD-Recordable optical media. After the initial assembly and testing, the prototype digitizing station was set up in the Archive's off-air recording room in the Baker building. Marshall worked with Archive staff on the use of the workstation. John Lynch prepared detailed instructions that can be used by other Archive staff.

The Archive received a $68,599 grant from a local private foundation to support the full transition from recording on videotape to capturing news programs as digital files. The grant will pay for acquiring the computers and components needed to create a total of 10 digitizing stations based on the prototype now in testing. The grant also includes DVD-R media sufficient for recording the news digitally for one year. With this funding in place, we expect to make the transition to digital recording by the end of May 2003.

The transition away from videotape recording means that the staff in the Archive that produce the abstracts will need to adapt to viewing news programs as MPEG-2 files. We anticipate a workflow where the abstractors are able to view the MPEG-2 files on the same computer monitor they use for writing the abstract. They will access the MPEG-2 files via the network, using a drive mapped to one of the digitizing stations. Testing of this workflow model has just begun and will proceed through May.

Once the Archive begins to record news programs digitally and convert the videotapes in its collection, it will be dealing with a large number of DVD-R optical discs. Managing the physical discs will take careful planning. We need to decide on how to store the disks. Will we leave them on spindles, place them in full-sized jewel cases, or use the slim-line jewel cases. Will we use jewel case labels? Or will be print labels directly onto the discs. Our tentative plans involve using clear slim-line jewel cases with no insert labels and to print identifying information directly on the DVD-R discs. While InkJet printers are less expensive they require special media; thermal transfer CD/DVD printers can print onto normal optical media reducing costs. We have ordered a Rimage PrismPlus thermal transfer CD/DVD printer that will be used to label all the DVD-R discs created in the Archive.

In addition to the technical work related to the TV News Archive, Marshall completed a set of enhancements to the Religious Iconography image database used by Anne Womack in the Divinity Library.

Meetings and Committees

Marshall and Jody met with the three candidates for the director of the Walker Management Library.

Other meetings included the Web Task Force, the Campus Technology Forum, TV News Staff Meetings, OUL Staff Meetings.

Marshall coordinated a visit by Scott Bowen, President of Artesia Technologies. Scott gave a presentation of TEAMS Digital Asset Management system for the Digital Collections Committee. While at the CNI meeting in Washington, Marshall talk with Jerry Persons from Stanford University regarding their use of Teams. Persons indicated that TEAMS plays various roles in their digital library infrastructure, and that they are generally pleased with its capabilities.

Marshall attended the Coalition for Networked Information Spring Meeting in Washington, DC on April 28 - 29. Paul and Marshall gave a break-out meeting presentation on the Vanderbilt Television News Archive and its status toward becoming a digital archive.

Extra-curricular Activities

Marshall's regular Systems Librarian column was published in the April 2003 issue of Computers in Libraries.