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Christmas Cacti are fun, make ideal gifts, and can bring many years of joy to your family.
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Articles » Computers » Data Recovery » How Data Loss Affects the Film and Advertising Industry
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- Article Views: 201
- Word Count: 777
- Date Contributed: Nov 22, 2007
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| How Data Loss Affects the Film and Advertising Industry |
In the recent past, the filming agency would complete the filming, create the prints and send the prints to the cinema theatres or the ad agency, for public viewing.
Today, however, many of the mainstream cinemas and the ads seen on your digital TV / movie screen have been captured using professional digital cameras. These cameras store the digital images on flash memory-based storage devices or on a hard disk. Once the film or ad campaign has been completely shot and digitised into the flash memory device or hard disk, the contents are then directly edited, by specialised non-linear editing software.
This non-linear editing is digitally done on the computer. In situations where the filming has been done on 35 mm celluloid film, the film is scanned into digital format for digital editing. Once the edited film is okayed, then the master copy of the film is made for distribution and archival.
During the process of shooting the film or editing the film, if there were to be a data loss of the recorded or edited action, then whatever has been shot or edited will have to be redone, unless periodic backups have been done. Since digital cinematographic cameras are designed to generate a lot of data when compared to the conventional cine cameras, redoing an entire shoot or even a part of it (due to absence of backup) would definitely be a painful, expensive and time consuming process, not only during the shoot but also during the post production process.
Once the edited content is approved, the master copy can be archived onto backup media (i.e. either conventional tapes or digital backup media), to serve as a permanent backup.
To ensure that the film in its digital form can be viewed or broadcast using conventional cinema projectors or digital projectors, the film is required to be transferred to conventional tape or copied onto digital media like magnetic tapes, DVD’s, hard disks etc. The chances of data loss occurring at this stage are less. However, if it does occur, it would mean that the entire copying of the final print would have to be done (notwithstanding the fact that there are backup copies available). The whopping cost of duplicating the final print from backups can still inflict a substantial loss on the distributor of the film, if a data loss occurred at this stage.
Since making pirated prints from the distributed copy of conventional tape is extremely rare or not possible, the owner or distributor of the film has to worry only about the digital copies falling into the wrong hands or being pirated. For this too, digital encryption technology has provided the solution, by way of an electronic lock and key system. Only the persons authorised to use the content are given access to this key. Any form of digital loss during the encryption or decryption can successfully lock out even the rightful owner of the film.
The viewing experience has been heightened by the digital technology employed and the use of digital technology to display the digitised output. Data loss during the broadcast can successfully kill all interest in the audience for whom it was intended, as a means of appeal or entertainment.
It is envisaged that, in the near future all types of digital video content can be viewed on the move via satellite. Currently digital content is delivered physically or via Wide Area Networks or satellite. Loss of data during transfer, leads to transmission breaks which can also successfully destroy the whole purpose behind the film or ad.
It is being increasingly said that the increasing use of digital technology can guarantee the quality and timely delivery of filming assignments, at reduced costs (about 25% less than conventional filming). However, due to the sensitive nature of the equipment used and the need to take backups regularly, it is possible that data loss can occur more frequently than in conventional filming. The cost advantage of 25% is wiped out, if the quality suffers and the cost of materials and the time spent on retakes, touching up etc. is huge.
Last but not the least if the final print suffers from data loss, you need professional help to avoid redoing the whole film! By the way, since the data to be recovered is definitely going to be a colossal mountain of pixels (due to the tremendous amount of information generated in the process of digitisation), you will have adequate time to complete your next filming assignment (during this period) and can also finance the huge bill for the data recovery.
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on computer crime and Computer Forensics see http://www.fieldsassociates.co.uk
Article Source: UnArchived Articles
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