Press release from TVC
UNESCO had proclaimed 27 October as World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, to highlight the importance of audiovisual materials (films, records video and audio, radio and television) and to encourage the protection and preservation of this documents as fundamental part of the cultural heritage and expression of national identity. The social and cultural development of XX and XXI centuries can not be understood without the audiovisual documents, which have become indispensable complements of written documents.
From its creation, in 1983, TVC, Televisió de Catalunya, has preserved all its production and broadcastings. Today, TVC archive is an important part of the Catalan Audiovisual Heritage. Catalan political, social and cultural development since 1983 is reflected in TVC archive. TVC productions are complemented by older materials, retrieved in other archives or private collections for the production of historical documentaries and included also in the archive.
In 2004 TVC implemented a digital production and archive system, Digition. The process of digitizing the old archive tapes to incorporate its content into the digital archive had started in 2006. Today, 45% of videotapes holdings are already digitized. For the digitizing process there have been prioritized materials in obsolete or fragile tapes, but also materials than are most likely to be used. Thus, some archive collections, like the broadcast news and sports stories from 1984, or the program “30 minutes”, are already digitized nearly 100%.
Internal users have direct access to all the digital archive materials, managed and indexed by the Documentation Department. Archive holdings are widely used. More than 500 clips, about 75 hours, are retrieved from the archive by day, for different purposes: rebroadcasting, reuse in new productions, sales..
An important part of the digital archive is also accessible online. In TVC website, 3alacarta video-on-demand service, nourished daily of new productions but also incorporating part the old material digitized, offers users more than 80,000 videos online. A selection of productions with educational value is also accessible in EDU3 website. And with the participation of TVC in European projects, as VideoActive and EUscreen,, a significant selection of digital archive holdings are also accessible through Europeana.
With the digitalization of the archive, TVC is achieving a dual objective, preservation and accessibility, that is, ensure the permanent preservation of the images in the best possible quality and provide an easy access, both to internal and external users.
