Preserved Media
Now Available On YouTube: Exploring the VSW Archive – Early Video Art & Community Media in Western NY
On August 5th, 2020, BAVC Media streamed a video event with Visual Studies Workshop (VSW), and we're happy to announce that the recording is now live on YouTube! Over the last two years BAVC Media has been working with VSW in Rochester, NY to preserve their archive of early video recordings. The VSW Film and Video Collection holds more than 4,000 video tapes, many of which were made between 1970-1990 by artists, activists and collectives throughout New York State. This fascinating collection includes over 1,500 ½” open reel recordings from community access programs such as Portable Channel, SYNAPSE, [...]
Meet Leah Simon: Preservation Intern
Meet Leah Simon: BAVC Media Preservation Intern Working with BAVC Media as a preservation intern was a real treat. Coming to video preservation and digitization as a graduate student studying Folklore and archival theory, I had never worked with tape collections before BAVC Media. Not only was I able to apprentice with knowledgeable mentors like Morgan Morel, trained at the University of Michigan's Information Studies Program, or Anne Smatla who graduated from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, but through their mentorship, I was given the training to work with a wide range of tape material that I [...]
Now Available On YouTube: From Video Activism to Early Immersive Media
Stills from: Crip Camp (left) Mind of Universe (right) On June 3rd, 2020, BAVC Media streamed a video event highlighting the history of early video collectives The People’s Video Theatre (PVT) and Survival Arts Media (SAM) through their archive of preserved analog video. From their roots as video activists to their mind-expanding experiments with video art and early immersive media performances, the story of PVT and SAM is the story of early video’s growth into its own distinct form of expression and storytelling. A video recording of the streaming event is now available for viewing here! In these [...]
“Crip Camp” to Premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival
Throughout New York State in the 1970s The People's Video Theater was producing documentary programs using Sony PortaPak cameras. At the time, this technology was cutting-edge, and these programs chronicled the counterculture and liberation movements that transformed the politics of America. The collective’s mission was to explore the capabilities of the video medium for creative self-expression and community empowerment. The real-time recording and playback capabilities of this new video medium allowed The People's Video Theater to capture material and play it back for their subjects immediately. This “feedback” capability enabled participants to shape their own stories on-screen, and to initiate [...]
Converting FFV1/MKV to v210/MOV
Digital Deliverables at BAVC Media At BAVC Media Preservation one of our main objectives is to digitize tape-based media formats to preservation-ready digital files. We often try to walk the thin line between helping collection holders make decisions about their master formats and being as flexible as possible to provide them with their desired formats. Literature about the benefits, adoption, and capture of MKV have already been written, so we’ll skip that for now. Instead, this blog post will describe our process of converting FFV1/MKV files to v210/MOV files while ensuring that no data is lost or mangled in the [...]
