Who’s Using What: PREFORMA Project

Interview by Gregory Markus

Posted on: 15 April 2016

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Source: Europeana Pro blog

 

europeana-proFor this edition of Who’s Using What, Gregory Markus looks towards the digital preservation challenges that GLAMs face. He interviewed two developers from the PREFORMA Project: Xavi Tarres from Easy Innova (who is working on DPF Manager, the conformance checker for TIFF images) and Jérôme Martinez from MediaArea (who is working on MediaConch, the conformance checker for MKV/FFv1 audiovisual files).

 

pfo_logo_lscapePREFORMA will develop open source tools that double-check files being preserved long term and adhere to open standards. This will allow memory institutions full control over the process of conformity testing files which will be ingested into their collections – vital to resolving issues, such as non-conformity, that can arise from digitization to preservation, dramatically slow down workflow, and drain precious resources.

 

A problem that many institutions face in terms of long term digital preservation is that the files they receive may not be compliant with standard implementations – in turn, causing read, write or playout problems later on. The PREFORMA project published a call to support the development of three open source projects developed around an open reference implementation for documents, photographs and video files and to develop tools that check file conformance. The project has organised an open workshop in Stockholm where the early stage tools will be presented. You can download the presentations here. For more information about the project, see the PREFORMA website.

 

Read here the whole interview.

 

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