NYU Video Digitized

A company that develops and manufactures the world's only systems designed to cost effectively digitize medium to large size videotape archives, Samma Systems has just played a significant dual role in the 6th Orphan Film Symposium held at the New York University (NYU) Cantor Film Centre.
Not only did Jim Lindner, Chief Executive Officer of Samma Systems, participate in a lecture on the technology of digitizing legacy videotapes, but also the company's semi-automated migration system - Samma Solo – was used to migrate 300 tapes belonging to the historic Fales Library at NYU, which were then used in the presentation.
The Fales Library is the primary repository for special collection materials at NYU.
The Samma Solo digitized a unique body of Umatic videotapes from the Library's 'Downtown Collection', which documents the explosion of artistic expression that took place in SoHo and the Lower East Side of New York City from the early 1970s through the 1990s.
"The Samma system made it possible for us to evaluate not only the physical tapes, but also the content on those tapes - something that completely revolutionized our approach to preserving the videos in our collection," said Marvin J. Taylor, Director of the Fales Library and founder of the Downtown Collection.
"The quality of the images was amazing. Finally, it seems that we will be able to preserve the heritage of downtown video artists, and all those downtown art events that were documented on video.
"Samma is a boon to the history of downtown art, and to any other culture preserved on video," he said.
Samma Solo is a compact, semi-automated system that serves as a complement to Samma Systems' robotic-based solution designed for large analog libraries.
The unit offers a cost-effective solution to organizations possessing more modest libraries.
Nearly 400 people from 18 countries attended the successful biennial event that focuses on neglected forms of moving image material. Attendees were comprised of a diverse cross section of professionals all involved in media and included archivists, preservationists, scholars, historians, museum curators, librarians, collectors, media artists and filmmakers.
(BMcC)