The NFSA of Australia puts Mediaflex to work

21st June 2011

Broadcast Asia 2011, Stand 4E2-08: TransMedia Dynamics (TMD) an established presence at the forefront of the development and delivery of solutions and services to the global media, broadcast and archive industries announced today that its “Mediaflex” product has been put into live operational use at the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) of Australia.

TMD won a public tender for a system to replace the NFSA’s legacy collection management system, a system that managed the NFSA’s extensive analogue collection efficiently, but proved to be inadequate for handling digital assets. The NFSA’s digital collection is growing not only because of the increasing uptake of digital production methods in Australia’s audio-visual sector, but because of the NFSA’s own digitisation programmes.

However, at current digitisation rates, it would take more than 30 years to digitise the existing analogue video collection which means that the management of analogue collection items will remain a major part of the NFSA’s operations. Thus, to meet the NFSA’s ongoing core business needs, it was critical to select a system capable of managing both analogue and digital assets.

When TMD was founded, it was clear that many organisations lacked the resources to digitise all of their analogue material promptly and that for organisations with large collections, management of analogue assets would remain an important requirement for many years to come. With this in mind, Mediaflex was designed from the ground up to manage both digital and analogue assets. This comprehensive approach impressed the NFSA.

TMD’s implementation of Mediaflex included the migration of significant volumes of data from the NFSA’s legacy system and some customisation of features necessary to support a Government funded audio-visual archive. Importantly for the NFSA, TMD understood exactly what was required and so the customisations needed have been incorporated into the base Mediaflex product and will be fully maintained by TMD through the dedicated support facility and available for other Mediaflex customers to deploy.

TMD Chairman and CEO Tony Taylor said, “It is important to recognise in such a significant project that the teams from both the NFSA and TMD have worked diligently together to ensure that the solution meets the current and future needs of the NFSA’s operation. For the NFSA, the main focus is on preserving, protecting and providing access to the rich cultural heritage of both physical and digital assets which they hold on trust for the Australian nation and indeed the wider world. It’s therefore important that systems designed for archive organisations are able to support both physical media – such as film and tape – as well as digital content, which includes video and audio files, still images and scanned documents. Mediaflex now enables the archivists at the NFSA to better manage and catalogue the vast array of both physical and digital assets it is charged with preserving while enabling the digitisation of a greater proportion of assets to make them, if desired, accessible from the web.”

The NFSA’s Chief Information Officer, Tony Watson, said, “It was important that the creators of our new asset management system understood the complexities of cataloguing and managing information about a national collection of this size and nature. TMD took the time to understand our needs and to enhance the system to meet our requirements.”

About NFSA
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia collects, preserves, interprets and shares Australia’s historic and contemporary screen and sound culture. With over 1.6 million items in the national audiovisual collection, it is Australia’s most extensive collection of moving image and sound materials.
The collection includes the first film images and sounds recorded in Australia in the 1890s right through to the most recent high profile film, television and sound and recordings.
In addition to discs, films, videos, audio tapes, phonograph cylinders and wire recordings, the collection includes supporting documents and artefacts such as photographic stills, transparencies, posters, lobby cards, publicity materials, scripts, costumes, props, memorabilia and sound, video and film equipment. www.nfsa.gov.au

About TMD
TMD is a world leader focused on designing and delivering media management solutions and services to the global media, broadcast and archive sectors. TMD provides solutions for the management of both traditional physical media, such as film and video tape, as well as the evolving digital landscape. Founded in 1998, TMD is a privately held company headquartered near London, in the UK with offices in the USA and Australia. Its client base spans both global and national organisations proving TMD is small enough to care yet big enough to deliver. For additional information on TMD products and services, please visit www.tmd.tv

TMD Press contact

Jennie Evans
Manor Marketing
Tel: +44 (0) 1635 44991
jennie@manormarketing.tv
TMD Company contact:

Tony Taylor,
Chairman & CEO
TransMedia Dynamics
Tel: +44 (0) 1296 745080
tony.taylor@tmd.tv