National Library of Australia


SWIFT (Screen Windows Into Film Titles)

Project participants: Cinemedia, Silicon Graphics Australia and Monash University Centre for Telecommunications and Information Engineering
Contact officer/s: Lynda Bernard, Research and Project Officer (email online@cinemedia.net, phone 03 9651 0600 or fax 03 9651 1488) or Robin Wright (email rwright@cinemedia.net)
Project description: Cinemedia is currently developing a tailored solution for the storage and delivery of film and video titles in a digital environment. When SWIFT is operational, it will be used to provide online delivery of Cinemedia's screen culture programs. It will also offer commercial digital management and delivery services to owners and users of audio-visual material.
URL of site: http://www.acmi.net.au/SWIFT/project.html
URL for project information: http://www.acmi.net.au/SWIFT/project.html
Content: Film and video.
Digitisation policy and priorities: No digitisation or online policy.
Timetable: Current project: 1 July 1996 - 30 July 1998
Budget and funding: State government funding - over $A1,000,000
Staff resources: Collaborative project.
Technical standards: MPEG -1 Encoded at 2 Megabits per second using, principally, Silicon Graphics software - MediaBase Dynakion's MediaNet and others developed in-house. Hardware provided by project partners
Cataloguing and indexing: As we already have a film and video collection we adopted the same method but indicated 'digital' as another format in addition to 16mm, VHS etc. Our catalogue allows for Title, Keyword or LoC subject headings. We assign accession numbers to each digital copy.
Comments: Quality checking needed to ensure acceptable level of image quality. Sometimes needed to re-encode. Can successfully manage a digital collection and deliver digitally encoded film and video over a broadband network to users on demand.

Project managers wishing to update the details of their Australian digitisation projects, should email the changes to alg@nla.gov.au.

Last modified: August 09 2004.