Created in 1989, the Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA) has the mission to protect and promote Luxembourg’s audio, video and film heritage, produce documents for the interest of the nation and initiate the public use of such files in their cultural communication.

The CNA has a wide library of archives for public and professional use, with also 2 cinemas, a media-center and galleries.

CHALLENGE - Time destroys the physical archives

• Protect the present & future archives from negative time impact
• Ensure full security of pictures, videos & sounds
• Create a public access to the library for consultation and use
• Offer to the CNA a complete control on the solution

The CNA has the largest collection of audio, video and film archives in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The challenge for BCE was to present the best way to keep those archives safe from negative time impact. Film strips can disintegrate, magnetic tapes lose their quality or the players may just disappear with the evolution of technology.

Over and above keeping the archives safe, the CNA  also had the project to open their content to the public and to the professionals, in order to make a large library for film producers, TV channels or even home users wanting to have some more information about historical events.

“Digitising the archives from the CNA was a complicated task, as they were in many different formats. Some were so old that the post production team had to use all its expertise in the restoration of the films to fulfill the best quality on image. The overall result is a gigantic digital library of video and audio files in the best quality.”
Christian Garit | Head of Broadcast Operations | BCE.

SOLUTION - Digitisation makes the archives timeproof

• Digitisation is timeproof
• Files are stored in two robot libraries located in highly secured rooms
• Low resolution videos are available from the CNA for consultation and a delivery console gives the possibility to professionals to get a high quality copy
• The CNA operates a digitization platform and a database for an easy use of their resources
• Physical archives are stored in a secured room with a gaz extinction system and ambient control (temperature, humidity)

13 500 hours were digitized for the CNA on its grand opening.

Since the year 2000, BCE has been innovating in digitisation for the media market. The digitisation of the CNA’s archives started in May 2003 and will be finished in December 2008.

To ensure the full security of the archives, the digitised files are stored in two robot libraries (one located at the CNA and the other as a security mirror at BCE). Each library has a storage capacity of 5 PetaBytes. Physical archives are stored in a fully secured room with a sophisticated fire detection network with argonite extinguishing system.

The archives are stored in high quality and a low resolution file was created for consultation purpose or home users.

A complete digitisation platform was created for encoding new content from the CNA, the remaining mass digitization was let to the BCE team.

“Working with BCE was really a great experience. In addition to its digitisation services, the company has a full range of services covering all our needs in engineering, IT, video and audio production and postproduction and even in radio and TV transmissions. This wide expertise gave us a comfortable position for the fulfilment of this project.”
Fernand Devas | Administrative Coordination Manager | CNA.

BENEFITS

With its new infrastructure and its media library fully digitized, the Centre national de l’audiovisuel is now able to present to the public their rich media content.

Its independent digitisation platform gives Luxembourg the power to ensure the eternal life of their historical material, giving a new point of study for the next generations.

“If you know the past, you can control the future. BCE has shown a great expertise in the delivery of the perfect tool for our Centre. The public can now have access to all our files, get them in low resolution on DVD or even ask for high definition contents for their productions.”
Jean Back | Director | CNA.