AMIA Newsbriefs

Is it curtains for Afghanistan's fading silver screen?

Once a treasured luxury for the elite, Afghan film connoisseurs are deeply distressed by the dilapidated state of their cinemas, which reflect an industry on the brink of collapse from conflict and financial
neglect.
 
Read the story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/17/uk-afghanistan-cinema-idUSLNE84G01M20120517

When digital dies, where does that leave game preservation?

At a certain point, beyond the human drama and cries of money wasted on the consumer side, this becomes a preservation issue. The teams that made these games worked hard on these creations -- if people can't play
them, how much do we really care about our art? We live in a complex digital landscape, and greater efforts should be made to preserve the experience of these games. If we had anywhere near the preservation efforts seen in other industries, I would be able
to play EA's MMA title 20 years into the future if I wanted to.
 
Read the story here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/170243/When_digital_dies_where_does_that_leave_game_preservation.php

Digidev Group Inks Deal to Launch Classic and Silent Feature Films Online

Martin W. Greenwald, CEO of Digidev, adds, "David Shepard has amassed an extraordinary library of classic films dating back almost 100 years. Bringing these titles to the OTT Internet space
will give millions of people worldwide the opportunity to share and enjoy these treasures. I am so pleased that David has entered into this agreement with Digidev. Our goal is to secure a diverse roster of interesting and truly great programming for this exciting
new consumer technology and The Film Preservation Associates library is a very welcome addition."
Read the story here: http://www.execdigital.com/press_releases/moviesmusic-videos/digidev-group-inks-deal-to-launch-classic-and-silent-feature-films-online

Vatican Cracks Open Doors to Catholic Church's 'Secret' Archive

But in an effort to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the archives, the Vatican decided to bring out 100 of its most famous, original papal documents and put them on display at
Rome's Capitoline Museum from March to September of this year.
 
Read the story here: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2012/05/18/vatican-cracks-open-doors-to-catholic-churchs-secret-archive

Old films bring back the memories

Archive films are being used to help people with dementia and other memory disorders in a new project.

 
Read More

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/2012/05/17/old-films-bring-back-the-memories-91466-30987291/#ixzz1vAav9NF6

Physicists Store Short Movie In A Cloud of Gas

Researchers have been able to store single images in a cloud of rubidium atoms for several years. Now they've gone a step further

 
Read the story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27834/

Academy's Film-To-Film Rescues Cinematic Past

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has undertaken a unique expansion in film preservation. As the rise of digital technology drastically
reduces the availability of film stock, the project accelerates the work of the Academy Film Archive to acquire and create new archival film masters and prints from at-risk elements. Under the banner "Film-to-Film," the $2 million initiative, approved by the
Academy’s Board of Governors, focuses largely on Academy Award®-winning and nominated films from across motion picture history, including works made as recently as the 1990s.
 
Read the press release here: http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2012/20120507a.html

Bit Rot

PICTURE yourself as a historian in 2035, trying to make sense of this year's American election campaign. Many of the websites and blogs now abuzz with news and comment will have long since perished. Data stored electronically decays. Many floppy disks from the early digital age are already unreadable. If you are lucky, copies of campaign material, and of e-mails and other materials (including declassified official documents), will be available in public libraries.

Read the story here: http://www.economist.com/node/21553445

Conservatives defend cuts to Archives Canada

The Canadian Library Association and the Canadian Association of University Teachers said this week a more than 10 per cent budget cut has left Canada's main library-of-record struggling to maintain - and grow - its collection, a feat they say was already difficult due to targeted cuts over the past six years.

Read the story here: http://www.canada.com/news/Conservatives+defend+cuts+Archives+Canada/6560966/story.html

Occupy Wall Street: From the Streets to the Archives

Within weeks of the occupation of Zuccotti Park last fall archivists from the New-York Historical Society and other institutions were out scooping up posters, fliers, pamphlets, signs and other ephemera. "For us, it's an event in New York City," said Jean Ashton, the society's executive vice president and director of its library, which has so far amassed several hundred Occupy-related artifacts. "We want to make sure that people understand what happened here."

Read the story here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/occupy-wall-street-from-the-streets-to-the-archives/

The Library of Utopia

Google's ambitious book-scanning program is foundering in the courts. Now a Harvard-led group is launching its own sweeping effort to put our literary heritage online. Will the Ivy League succeed where Silicon Valley failed?

Read the story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/web/40210/

What is the difference between The Hobbit and the news? Not as much as there should be

It's a curious testament to the power of moving pictures that you have to strain to remember that in reality, people walked at a normal pace back then. The population didn't skitter about like restless insects. If the 20s had actually unfolded at the speed they appear to in archive footage, the decade would've ended early, somewhere in the middle of 1925, thereby causing a five-year "time gap" during which everyone would have to stand perfectly still for fear of creating an "event" that might burst the bubble, sucking in all the neighbouring matter in the universe. Or something like that. Ask Doctor Who, he's the expert.

Read the Commentary here.

Texas Instruments Introduces Digital Cinema Technology For Small Theaters

Texas Instruments has launched its new S2K chipset under its DLP Cinema technology banner which has been expressly targeted for global cinema screens that have not yet installed
a digital cinema projector and are around 20ft wide. The development is a bid to further facilitate the transition to high-end digital cinema by creating a solution for smaller, regional or rural screens that have so far been unable to adopt or afford the standard 2K (or 4K) DLP Cinema solution of its three major OEMs, namely Barco, Christie and NEC.
 
Read the story here: http://www.screendigest.com/news/2012_04_ti_launches_new_S2k_chip_as_solution_for_smaller_screens/view.html

A universal digital library is within reach

Ideally, a digital library would provide access not only to books free from copyright constraints (those published before 1923), but also to the tens of millions of books that are still in copyright but
no longer in print.

Read the story here.

Film vs. Digital: Archivists Speak Out

News that a press screening of The Avengers had to be delayed over two hours because the digital file was accidentally deleted spread through a number of film and tech sites.  For some, it was further confirmation of the warnings raised by Gendy Alimurung in a recent LAWeekly article: “Movie Studios Are Forcing Hollywood to Abandon 35mm.”
 
Read the story here: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/movies/2012/05/film-vs-digital-archivists-speak-out/