Creating and Archiving Born Digital Video

Creating and Archiving Born Digital Video. Library of Congress. December 2, 2014.
Four PDF documents from the Library of Congress / The FADGI Audio-Visual Working Group. They provide practical technical information for both file creators and file archivists to help them make informed decisions when creating or archiving born digital video files and to understand the long term consequences of those decisions.

•  Part 1. Introduction. Explanatory document.
  These recommended practices are intended to support informed decision-making and guide file creators and archivists as they seek out processes, file characteristics, and other practices that will yield files with the greatest preservation potential.
  The documents and case histories show that there is no one answer to the question “what format should I use to ensure sustainable long term access for my born digital video files?” Instead, there is "a range of solutions based on the fitness for purpose concept where the workflows and deliverables achieve the specific goals set out for the project within the existing constraints and circumstances."
• Part 2. Eight Federal Case Histories. This report presents eight case histories documenting the current state of practice in six federal agencies working with born digital video, divided into 3 creating cases, and three archiving cases.The goal of the three Creating case histories is to encourage a thoughtful approach from the very beginning of the video production project,  which takes sustainability and interoperability into account. The three Archiving case histories show issues of moving the files into repositories, and explore the issues of long term retention and access. The report contains recommended practices, requirements, advice, examples of when following recommended practices is not practical, costs, and lessons learned. At the end are helpful File Characteristic Comparison Tables summarizing the specifications of the creating and archiving case histories, both video and audio data.
• Part 3. High Level Recommended Practice. This document outlines a set of high level recommended practices for creating and archiving born digital video, with advice for file creators, archivists, and advice for both that transcend life cycle points.Some important general points:
• Born digital video files should be the highest quality that the institution can afford to make and maintain over the long term.
• Project planning should include capabilities to create high quality digital video files and metadata from the outset
• One of the most important functions of archival repositories is to document their holdings.
• Identify the file characteristics at the most granular level possible, including the wrapper and video stream encoding 
• It's essential in an archival environment to understand why changes to the technical characteristics of the file are needed and the impacts of these changes on the data.
• Equally as important is to document all the changes to order to document provenance.
• Create metadata to support life cycle management
• Plan for access: high quality born digital video files may need additional processing to be made widely available

• Part 4. Resource Guide. This document includes links to resources including those referred to in the case histories and recommended practices. Contains an excellent resource list to websites, documents, white papers, tools; they cover the areas of storage; transcoding / editing and other technical tools; inventorying and processing; digitizing, capture, preservation & quality control; authenticity, fixity & integrity; file naming; metadata; formats; standards; video creation; equipment and capture devices. 

[The report mentions the program ImgBurn for creating ISO images from files. Be aware the install files include OpenCandy (considered malware/ nuisance ware) which will be flagged by Symantec, AVG, and other anti-virus programs.]

Digital Preservation Matters.