Commonwealth Bank of Australia - DAMsmart

“The Commonwealth Bank Archives contracted DAMsmart to digitise our early films. These films had been badly stored over the years and were in poor condition. DAMsmart managed to digitise the film very quickly at a reasonable cost and the results were very pleasing, far better than I expected considering the condition of the film. DAMsmart also presented us with preservation and access formats which is very useful. An extensive condition report for each item was also included in the cost which has proved to be very effective in the management of the original film. We will definitely continue with DAMsmart to digitise the rest of our A/V holdings.”
Vivienne Larking, Manager Information and Archives, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

About CBA

CBA are Australia’s leading provider of integrated financial services, including retail, premium, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and share-broking products and services.

The Commonwealth Bank Documentation and Archives Centre serves internal needs and supplies information to the public about the organisation’s history and operations.

Their challenge

CBA holds a range of physical audiovisual formats in its archive, which contains a range of content from training materials to events to advertising materials. CBA identified that the content represents an important part of the bank’s history and identified a need to preserve it. After undertaking a survey of the collection the bank identified a need to digitise the collection. In order to achieve this, the bank had to look for an external partner to undertake the project.

The collection

The collection contained 191 cans of film containing approximately 119,000 feet of 16mm film and 61,000 feet of 35mm film. Parts of the collection had vinegar syndrome, which in some cases was severe.

How DAMsmart helped make the content accessible

DAMsmart was appointed to the project by the CBA. The collection was relocated to Canberra for the duration of the project. The film was registered, cleaned and encoded, including a primary colour grade. Each title was delivered back as a digital package that included Lossless JPEG2000.mxf for preservation, XDCAM HD.mxf for reproduction and for access an H.264.mov file.

Once encoded, the collection underwent manual and file-based QC, with a checksum created, before being archived to hard drive.

Learn more about film digitisation.

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