Video Priorities

Tentative launch date: July 2022

Additional Video Features/Priorities:

• Research and apply video transcription and closed captions.

• Research and apply HLS conversion upon ingest into digital collections

• Digitize VHS tapes for ingest

• Continue internally advocating for the download button through further copyright research

  • Added a new page with copyright descriptions for each item.

• Add a function that shows snapshot thumbnails like a “storyboard” style, and/or when you hover over the “scrubber” (A UI you may recognize from netflix and digital TV, eg Videojs: How To Create Preview Thumbnails )

• Add interface to allow you to choose which video frame to use as a thumbnail/poster

• Add sharing-link to specific timecode in a video (like is done with Oral Histories)

Users should be able to:

• stream video files in their browser COMPLETE

• download mp4 video files

1. Waiting for buy-in from stakeholders. Eventually would like to add the download option, but we have decided to put that off until more progress has been made to minimize copyright risks.
2. Would like to aim to reassess this decision by August 2022.

• view descriptive metadata about the content of the file and technical metadata about the file itself

1. This is visible to staff on the back-end.

• search for video content the same way they search for all other digital collections content (limit searches to video, include video in all relevant faceted searches, etc.) Complete

Current VHS digitization workflow:

VHS digitized in real-time into preservation and access copies

• preservation files: ffv1 codec, AVI wrapper.

  • Stored on the M:\ drive for now.

  • Eventually all VHS tapes will go through this process.

  • File size estimate: 25.4 GB for approx 25 min of video

• access files: h.264 codec, mp4 wrapper.

  • Stored on M:\ drive for now in “access” folder.

  • mp4s created in house as part of digitization process if requested via R&R or intended for digital collections.

  • File size estimate: 164MB for approx 25 min of video

Questions

• thumbnail generation? Complete

• file size limits

• re: file size limits, if over a certain size, break file into multiples?

• ongoing discussion about costs for storage, conversion to HLS, access/streaming at point of access, fixity checks

• reminder that we’ll need to tweak/add to some of the metadata dropdowns (genre, mostly) Complete