BiMuL: a Video Digital Library based on Dspace

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the results of a two years work in management and customization of our digital video archives using Dspace, and showing an ongoing project as well.

We had to create a digital archive of about 3,900 didactic videos targeted to be used in public schools and stored on heterogeneous media (such as vhs, beta cam and 3/4). Our goals were to digitalize as a first step a selected subset of these videos, restoring their quality whenever it was possible, and as second step to give them online access.

In order to archive these goals we analyzed the whole process, characterizing the various steps and the specific skills of every actor involved, and we looked for a solution in managing very large files, which is the main issue for a digital video archive.

Our solution was to create an high quality master copy stored on DVCpro50 digital tape and on ordinary files outside of Dspace asset-store, and ingesting just a streaming version with all the associated metadata for the online archive.

The problems faced on Dspace-side of this project were the lack of a filter-media plug-in being able to manage and manipulate ingested files containing audio-video data, and to find an effective way to present video streams in xmlui. Second, we had to find a way to correlate Dspace item with the each master copy.

In order to cope with these problems we developed a solution that involves a bash-scripted system that takes care of process original files, converts them in a video format suitable for online stream vision and generates a 30secs clip and other still image previews elements. Finally these items are packaged up into a sip object with a small set of metadata extracted from the master copy and then ingested into Dspace workflow. The position of original files is recorded into Dspace items metadata.

On xmlui-side we created a custom theme using JQuery javascript libraries to show video media into a flash player both in embedded (in the page) and into an overlaid mode.