Film- and audio conservation and – digitization well under way

October 6th 2008

Sound and Vision has called for tender in July 2008 for the conservation of 5000 hours of sound film in the upcoming four years. In the mean time the German company Gürtler has commenced this task. This fall a second tender was called for the film-film conservation of 2300 hours of 16mm acetate film, regarding the period from the beginning of Dutch television, as of 1951. Consequently, this important period of time, the beginning of television in the Netherlands, will remain preserved and accessible.

At the beginning of 2009 Sound and Vision will digitize 1500 hours of telerecording under its own management. Telerecordings are direct recordings of television broadcasts on film from the initial period of Dutch television, a time when video recording did not yet exist. At the end of 2008 another tender will probably be published for film digitization and film encoding. The digitization of the audio collection of Sound and Image is proceeding successfully, with an annual goal of well over 14.000 hours of audio in 2008.