The three-year project involves restoration and digitisation of more than 14 years of BBC news and current affairs archives - amounting to around 3.5 million feet of 16mm footage on Ektachrome film - which have been damaged over the years.
TMR will clean, rewash and polish the archive film in its film treatment centre. The facility's telecine team will then grade and transfer each reel of 16mm film to digital videotape. TMR is also going to encode each tape to MPEG1 on CD.
'We're not just using electronics to hide imperfections in the film,' said TMR managing director Danny Whybrow. 'We're making sure that the film is in the best possible condition before it goes through any electronic processes.'
One of the largest restoration contracts won by TMR, it will employ seven staff for the duration and follows two earlier one-year archive restoration projects for the BBC. It is part of the BBC's ongoing plans to digitise all its archive material.
TMR won the project after a review of several post houses and was chosen for its
in-house facilities, including its film treatment centre.
The BBC deal comes after a £100,000 investment by the facility in video restoration and enhancement (Broadcast, 6.2.04). TMR has already won a number of broadcast and TV restoration projects on the back of it.
'They are projects that we wouldn't have won without that investment,' Whybrow said. The facility is now looking to expand this area of its operations in a bid to bring in HD restoration work, he revealed.
No comments yet