Toward the end of last year, my colleague Scott Croucher and I had the chance to travel to the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) Conference in Rome. At the time, the conversations across the event felt urgent and immediate, and after a few months’ reflection, their relevance has only sharpened.
Two themes from FIAT/IFTA have stayed with me most clearly. The first was urgency. Much of the world’s audiovisual heritage is approaching a point where recovery may no longer be possible. The second was more human. Again and again, speakers returned to the importance of experience, judgment and care in preservation-quality migration and recovery.
Together, they form a challenge the heritage sector can’t afford to ignore.
The Last Train for Migration
Film and tape hold history, a history which must be preserved. Not only are the oldest formats essential to understanding the evolution of these media, but they also hold unique reflections of the past that only audio and video can capture. However, many of the early and specialist storage media are now fragile, obsolete, or both. As equipment disappears and materials degrade, the window for recovery is narrowing.
At FIAT/IFTA, there was a strong focus on the formats most at risk and the importance of clear archival policy to provide the legal, technical, and governance frameworks to support migration and preservation. Little room for error remains. Get this work right and future generations retain access to irreplaceable material. Get it wrong and that history is gone, permanently.
Why Migration Still Needs People
One of the most important reminders from the conference was the importance of personal experience and human touch in migration and recovery. Machines and parts are getting harder to find and maintain, and so are the skills required to operate them.
We must remember that recovery is an art form within itself, integral to the overall preservation of digital heritage. These machines are nothing without the engineers and specialists who make them work. At Ovation, our knowledge base is expansive. We have both the technical tools and the experience.
Across the team we’ve seen every kind of data you can imagine… you could drop almost any dataset on someone’s desk, and they’ll know what to do with it. That collective knowledge allows us to approach each recovery project with care, context and confidence. Tools matter, but they only work when guided by people who know how to use them well.
What This Means for Ovation
Conversations like those at FIAT/IFTA don’t sit in isolation for us. They shape how we think about our responsibility as a digitization and preservation partner.
That responsibility is one reason Ovation has been appointed as a framework partner with the British Film Institute (BFI) for video digitisation services. Working to support organizations like the BFI means working to the highest standards of care, accuracy and accountability, because the material involved is culturally significant and truly irreplaceable.
Whatever the format – film, tape, paper or born-digital files – our role is to recover and prepare data in a way that protects its integrity and keeps it accessible for the future. That requires technical capability, but it also requires judgment, patience and respect for the material itself.
As the window for preserving audiovisual heritage narrows, those qualities matter more than ever.
