Here is how the National Film Board of Canada describes its Cineroute project.
For many years now, the NFB has used technology to provide access to its vast film library. CineRoute is the outcome of an initiative undertaken in the early 1990s. Here is a brief description of the milestones in this project:
The great adventure began in 1992 , when the CineRobotheque opened its doors to the public in Montreal. Since then, over 7,000 films have been taken out of the NFB's vaults, inspected, cleaned, repaired if necessary, indexed, transferred to laser videodisc, and stored in the drawers of a robot server, ready to meet the many demands of visitors. While the robot has been in constant operation, serving up 50,000 titles a year, the R&D team has been exploring the various avenues that might allow even wider distribution of the NFB's impressive collection.
Two years later , the first prototype, CineRoute-0, was developed, in collaboration with Vidéotron Télécom, transmitting analogue audiovisual signals on demand over fibre optic cable to three Quebec universities.
In 1998 , Internet use exploded, as high bandwidth networks made it possible to transmit complex multimedia applications. RISQ, Quebec's scientific computer network, and CANARIE, Canada's advanced Internet development organization, which manage the CA*Net 3 network connecting Canadian colleges, universities and research centres, were the ideal partners with which to try out distribution of part of the NFB collection Canada-wide.
This meant that a large part of the collection had to be digitized, and in a hurry. Fortunately, the technology developed for the CineRobotheque could easily be adapted to the new challenge. Once again, the robot was put to work and it digitized day and night, in real time (at 1.6 Mbps), more than 800 films from the videodiscs in its drawers. Goodbye long and costly handling of master tapes buried away in inaccessible vaults. Everything was automated and close to hand - to the robot's hand, that is.
Once digitized, the films were stored on a high-capacity server to be transmitted at the request of CA*Net 3 users participating in the pilot project.
The CineRoute pilot project was officially inaugurated at the Capital Infocentre in Ottawa in December 1999 . Since then, the NFB has been working on digitizing its extensive collection in accordance with new standards that will permit projection of broadcast-quality image on full-size theatre screens.
Since then, the NFB has continued to develop its digital infrastructure to launch a public version of its online film library. The Public CineRoute was inaugurated in June 2003 as a two-year pilot-project, with 200 films in MPEG-4 format and 2,000 users selected across Canada.
And the work continues, with the eventual goal of making CineRoute available in every Canadian home... and NFB films just a click away!
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