GLAMx AV DIGITISATION LAB
Projects, Goals and tasks for 2020
NOTE: DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL
DIGITISATION OF NBN TELEVISION ARCHIVES
WILL CEASE ON 1 JUNE 2021.
Any individual, business or organisation wishing to support all or any part of these initiatives is very welcome to donate to the Vera Deacon Regional History Fund. Background on the Fund and its great work is here. Help us reach Deadline 2025.
Some Digitised sources from the NBN Television Archive are available to VIEW HERE
MISSION: To preserve, document, digitise and make accessible the Hunter Region’s Audio-Visual heritage in collaboration with NBN Television, City of Newcastle Public Library, National Film & Sound Archive and the Hunter Regional Community.
- OBJECTIVE 1: DIGITISATION OF THE NBN TELEVISION ARCHIVE
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- NBN LOCAL TELEVISION PROGRAM DIGITISATION PROJECT
- NBN FILM NEWS STORY DIGITISATION PROJECT
- NBN VIDEOTAPE NEWS STORY DIGITISATION PROJECT
- OUR REGIONAL WORLD 50 YEARS AGO
- THE NBN TELEVISION STORY
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- OBJECTIVE 2: REHOUSING & DIGITISATION OF UONCC AV ARCHIVES
- OBJECTIVE 3: DOCUMENT & DEVELOP GLAMX AV LAB CAPABILITIES
- OBJECTIVE 4: PUBLIC ACCESS
OBJECTIVE 1:
DIGITISATION OF THE NBN TELEVISION ARCHIVE
Preservation, Digitisation, Documentation and Public Access of the crucial elements of the NBN Film Archive from 1962 – Present.
Consisting of:
- NBN LOCAL TELEVISION PROGRAM DIGITISATION PROJECT – To digitise all surviving NBN Local television programs and segments from the years 1962 to 2020.
Project Status: This undertaking is largely complete; and 830 tapes have been digitised. This material forms the backbone of the NBN Television Archive. The remaining outstanding program consists of 150 videotapes of “Today Extra”. 30 tapes tapes have so far been digitised.
Staff: Michael Sherriff (V)2020 Goal: Continue digitisation of remaining 120 videotapes.

- NBN FILM NEWS STORY DIGITISATION PROJECT – Preparation, Conservation, Documentation and Digitisation of approximately 2145 x 16mm film reels containing News and Roving Eye stories from the years 1962 – 1982.
Project Status: To Jan 2020, 84 of the 2145x 16mm reels have been digitised; 11 of 71 months of News Scripts have been completed; 5 of 51 months of Roving Eye Scripts have been completed.
Staff: Phillip Lloyd (V), Barry Nancarrow (V)
2020 Goal: Digitise remaining 2061 x 16mm reels; 60 remaining NBN Scripts; 46 Roving Eye Scripts.


- NBN VIDEOTAPE NEWS STORY DIGITISATION PROJECT – To digitise the NBN News stories from 1982-2020. These stories reside on a mixture of BVU, Betacam and DVCam videotapes.
Project Status: The BVU group contains 1213 videotapes and have all been digitised; the Betacam group contains 2100 tapes of which 1600 have been digitised. These two tape groupings cover the years 1982 – 2000. The digitisation of 1100 DVcam tapes is not yet begun. They cover the remaining years 2000 – 2020.
Staff: Gary Magnay (V), Stephen Legge (V), Sarah Xenos (V).
2020 Goals:
– Continue capture of 500 remaining Betacam news story tapes including preparation of excel cue sheets lists
– Complete all unfinished excel Cue sheet lists from 1982 to 1988 including both BVU and Betacam.

- OUR REGIONAL WORLD 50 YEARS AGO – WIL Collaborative project to remake the News and Roving Eye film stories from 1970.
Project Status: This will entail using provided material from the NBN Film Digitisation Project, scanned original scripts, V/O narrations and story introductions with ex-News reader Ray Dineen (V) in front of a news backdrop of the era, and a selection of appropriate background music. WIL students will assemble the stories from these components to remake the stories the way they were originally presented. This will form part of their course requirements.Completed: UONCC YouTube Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkmNKCgS_V3ZNGWfhgM3hkbqIqbHOYqSb
NBN New Story Broadcast 2/4/2020: Original News Reports Digitised by University
https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2020/04/02/original-news-reports-digitised-by-university/Staff: Phillip Lloyd (V), Fran Shepherd (V), Linda Magnay (V), Deborah Wardell (V), Dr Ann Hardy Mr Ed Redden and .
2020 Goal(s):
– Prepare materials for Students project to remake the news stories from January and February 1970 (Total of 11 days) including Make and print separate story script PDFs (1 day per month of stories); Record Ray Dineen on camera intros and story V/Os (1 day’s shoot per month of stories); Prepare each story intro and V/O as a separate MP4 file (1 day per month of stories);Prepare each story intro and V/O as a separate MP4 file (1 day per month of stories); Extract each story vision separately from the film reel captures (2 days per month of stories); Organise equal work level of files for each student (1 day)
– Prepare the remaining months of 1970 to allow continuation of project by students if they would like a placement in the lab (or volunteering) to remake more stories. Also, to allow any other volunteers the same options.

- THE NBN TELEVISION STORY– Arrange, list and document a collection of four (4) boxes of archival photographs, video, documents, press clippings and digital only copies of material that provide insights into the local television station NBN from its inception to today.
Staff: Phillip Lloyd (V), Jan Welsman (V)
2020 Goal:
Continue adding metadata to NBN photos and images and restructuring all NBN textual material
OBJECTIVE 2:
REHOUSING & DIGITISATION OF UONCC AV ARCHIVES
Digitisation and Rehousing of University and wider regional Community audio-visual materials dating from 1920s.
STATUS: Thus far 32 of 16mm film reels have been digitised and rehoused.
Staff: Any of those above.
2020 Goals: Digitise and make accessible AV material of wider community research interest
OBJECTIVE 3:
DOCUMENT & DEVELOP GLAMX AV LAB CAPABILITIES
Development of systems and protocols for digitisation. Installation, maintenance and repair of equipment used in the AV Digitisation lab.

Staff: Phillip Lloyd (V) and NBN Television technicians (V)
2020 Tasks:
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- Complete development of 8 mm digital capture system
- Prepare instruction “How Tos” documents for all videotape, film and NBN Archive processes.
- Prepare Films for digitisation and preliminary Cue sheet,
- Digitise film from projector, Process captured film File,
- Make MP4 files of the master file,
- Prepare Film Cue sheets and do Timings from file,
- The content Structure, and placement of files in the NBN Archive,
- Digitisation of Betacam videotapes in isolation,
- Digitisation of all videotape types using video rack system
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- Continue transportation of videotapes, film boxes and script boxes from Newcastle Public Region Library to UON
- Locate missing card file Collections 1974 – 1980, 1986, 1988 – 1991. Also continue to explore ways of accessing the digital news file system from 1991 onwards
- Review previous attempts to capture AV digitisation processes e.g. Student Interviews etc
Current capabilities:
The GLAMx AV Digitisaton Lab at the University of Newcastle has the capacity to digitise the following materials and formats:
Audio Formats
Format | Date |
¼” reel to reel | 1945> |
16mm Fullcoat | 1960> |
Audio cassette | 1963> |
Mini cassette | 1969> |
CD | 1982> |
Video Formats
Format | Date |
Low Band Umatic | 1971> |
Betamax | 1975> |
BVU | 1976> |
VHS | 1977> |
Betacam | 1982> |
Betacam SP | 1986> |
S-VHS | 1986> |
BVU SP | 1986> |
Digital Betacam | 1993> |
Video CD | 1993> |
DV | 1995> |
Betacam SX | 1996> |
DVcam | 1996> |
Video CD | 1993> |
DVD | 1996> |
Film Formats
Format | Date |
16mm silent | 1923> |
8mm (coming soon) | 1932> |
16mm Optical sound | 1935> |
16mm Magnetic sound | 1965> |
Super8 (coming soon) | 1965> |
OBJECTIVE 4:
PUBLIC ACCESS
Uploading digitised content from all of above to our digital platform Living Histories @ UON and UONCC YouTube Channel
STATUS: In 2019 we were able to employ Joshua to prepare a number of video collections for public access, including the Country Report and Valleys People. See: https://livinghistories.newcastle.edu.au/nodes/view/79228
Staff: Joshua Curley (V) and any other persons
2020 Goals: Continue uploading digitised material to our digital platforms
And finally, a recently penned poem by Barry Nancarrow.
It’s in the Background
Barry Nancarrow – It’s in the Background (Poem) 2019 (PDF Version)
Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist & Chair, HLH
Can I ask to get my old (since 1979) Dymphna research cassette library of taped interviews digitised before they die. How much donation? VITAL are 30 Cassettes and same about on the mini cassettes. Bestest Marilla