Editor's Notes
by Ralph Sargent

Welcome to the third issue of the AMIA Tech Review. Unlike Gaul, this issue is split into four parts: Digital, Analog, new items already here and those on the horizon, and finally, points of historical interest.

Nicola Mazzanti follows up on the topic of Digital Cinema (first introduced by Arne Nowak in Issue 2) with a stirring ramble on what happens when an entire country is converted to digital cinema and all the virtues and vices of film-based cinema are declared dead and buried at the stroke of the pen! Though technical terms are bandied about with jocund abandon, don't let this stop you from grasping the finer points, both physical and psychological, when Nicola drills into the psyche of an archivist confronted by a new world and worried that the finer points of the last century's love affair with film will be lost in the rush toward totally electronic images.

On the contrary, Ken Weissman delivers the point of view of the United States' largest archive, the Library of Congress. Ken's dilemma is one of sheer quantity: the thousands upon thousands of reels of film and other media in the Library's collection. What to do? Read Ken's response.

Our thanks and praise to Nan Rubin for being the first person to voluntarily submit - meaning not coerced by the editor - an article to the Tech Review. Nan's article is about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's PBCore Metadata project, how it came about, its various revisions and its implementation. Everyone in AMIA knows how librarians and archivists love metadata, and this brief article should wet their whistles to dive in and create a similar and truly functional, fully inclusive database for film-based archives. Thanks Nan!

Bob Heiber of Chace Productions by Deluxe has contributed an article on the various generations of soundtracks for The Bridge on the River Kwai. Once and for all the squabbles in film fans' blogs concerning what the truth is regarding Kwai's sound can be laid to rest. Bob's the man who knows….

Also from Chace comes an article addressing "Loudness" on television, what the US Congress may be doing about it, and how the sound engineers will have to respond if Congress and the networks say, "Do it!" No more eardrums banging from commercial devotees of yell and sell.

Finally we end with a commentary on and a reprint of a chapter from the book, "Motion Pictures, How They are Made and Worked" published in 1914. This should let all of our early silent film fans know where those odd processing and printing fluffs came from and why. This truly is a look backward but an interesting and amusing one at that.

I would also like to recommend to our readers that they acquire and read a copy of the January/February 2011 issue of SMPTE's "Motion Imaging Journal." It is a single-topic issue on "Archiving and Retrieval" of digital motion pictures. I'm pleased to note that our publication of Sean McKee's and Victor Panov's article on "The Visionary Archive Process" in Issue 2 of the AMIA Tech Review was picked up by SMPTE in an amplified version. "Visionary…" and four other articles help the reader to know where our field is headed and consider how to be prepared for changes that surely will come.

And now, the boilerplate:

Those of you who feel you have appropriate material to contribute, please feel free to advise us via a thematic proposal or précis of your article. If accepted for publication, your articles should be received at the AMIA office no later than six weeks prior to next publication date. (Please email Laura Rooney at the AMIA Office for anticipated publication dates.) All articles or suggestions submitted are subject to review, condensation or augmentation and editing.

Publication of the AMIA Tech Review is web-based in portrait format. The print version is found as a PDF. Readers are encouraged to print whatever they wish for their own use; however, all material shall remain the copyrighted property of the Association of Moving Image Archivists or respective copyright holders as indicated and may not be reproduced for any other use in any form without the prior express written permission of the Association or indicated copyright holder.

We encourage readers of the AMIA Tech Review to become members of ancillary trade associations such as the National Association of Broadcasters, the Audio Engineering Society, the Society of Television Engineers, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, etc. Cross-pollination of technical information is important and we strongly support it!

Finally, please let us know what you think. It never hurts to speak your mind in a civil and constructive manner. If there is some aspect of this publication you feel could be improved, please let us know. If there is something you liked, let us know. You get the idea….

Best wishes and see you in Austin in November!

Ralph Sargent, editor

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