9th September 2016, London: Indiana University (IU) has selected Memnon Archiving Services Inc, , a Sony owned company, to undergo a historic project that will see the digitisation of 25.000 hours of its film collection. The programme, which is part of the university’s path-breaking Media Digitisation and Preservation Initiative, will make the titles available to Indiana faculty, students, and third parties within all applicable law. ​ This includes many rare and last-remaining copies of historic films that will be available for the first time.

Under the terms of the agreement to be finalized, Memnon will install all the necessary equipment to digitize these fragile films and operate them on site at Memnon’s facility at Indiana University. This will ensure the safety of the archive and make sure the digitisation is delivered meeting highest quality targets and as efficiently as possible. Both 16mm and 35mm films will be digitized into 2K or 4K digital files. ​

“The Memnon team has been instrumental in our Media Digitisation and Preservation initiative from the beginning,” said Laurie Antolovic’, MDPI Executive director, Associate Vice President and Deputy Chief Information Officer at Indiana University. “They have been an outstanding partner in working with the university’s own world renown experts in media and preservation. ​ IU is pleased to be working with Memnon as we look to expand the historic audio-video project to the greater complexities of film. ​ While digitization is the essential first step, the IU Technology organization and the IU Libraries will complete the post-digitization work of making these treasures discoverable and available to people around the globe.”
​ Memnon Archiving Services has already supported IU in digitising and archiving its rich and varied audio and video collection of nearly 300,000 assets from across the university. A dedicated facility was set up in Bloomington, Indiana to produce up to 12 terabytes of digital data a day. The initiative was set up after the university realised many of its media assets were in danger of degradation or were only available in formats that were quickly becoming obsolete. Within the first year of the project Memnon and IU have worked together to rescue more than 100,000 audio and voice recordings including performances by notable graduates from its Jacobs School of Music.

“At Memnon we’re dedicated to preserving historic content, but rarely do we get to work on a project that combines such scale and breadth,” said Michel Merten, Co-chief Executive Officer and Founder at Memnon Archive Management Services. “This is truly one of the most important projects of its type. We’re honoured to continue the collaboration in order to preserve this important collection which comprises everything from historic educational films and documentaries through to silent films and comedies.”

Archiving services are part of Sony Professional Solutions Europe’s growing services portfolio, designed to complement its wide range of products, systems and applications. For more information on Sony’s archiving capabilities visit:
​ http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/products/solutions-memnon-archive-management-services.