Digitization Vs. Archiving. Whats the Difference?

At Revolve Video we've been digitizing memories for years. Folks have brought in all kinds of old media to digitized. Slides of all shapes and sizes, fantastic film clips and many Christmas mornings on VHS. Also, we've seen large collections of media for government agencies, museums, schools and more. What makes a small digitization project different than a large scale archiving project?

Here are 5 differences between home movie conversion jobs and large collection digitization projects:

Scale of Project - Normal home video conversion projects tend to be smaller in scale and simpler to convert. Large volume projects often made up of multiple formats that require specialized equipment. Large volume projects also require dedicated resources to properly deliver on time. That's why we started Revolve Digital Archiving. To set up a branch of Revolve Video dedicated to large media collections.

Cataloguing - A large media digitization project needs an index. A list of of everything to digitized. The finished product needs to return back to the customer in a complete and organized fashion.

Searchable - With just a small collection of home videos, there's not much to search through when you want to enjoy memories. With a large media collection, the items needs to be in a searchable environment, so required items can be easy to find. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet or Google doc or a more complex cloud based solution.

Storage - Lot of items require SPACE. Especially video tapes - those are quite the space hog. Revolve Digital Archiving has lots of shelves! Big projects take up big space.

Dedicated Equipment - To efficiently manage a lot of video tape conversions, you need many VCRs and cameras. For thousands of 35mm slide conversions, you need multiple scanners and computers. A small home movie project could be completed with a simple computer connection and dedicated VCR.

If your media conversion project is a large one, you might consider an archiving solution. Media conversion now will save time, money and resources down the line.