EBU summit in Podgorica: public broadcasters from ten countries on digitizing TV archives

A two-day summit organized by RTCG under the patronage of the European Broadcasting Union will gather experts from ten countries in Podgorica to discuss the preservation, digitization and opening of large television archives.

RTCG enters this conversation with serious experience. Its archive digitization process has been going on for years — around 4,500 film reels alone have been digitized so far. Much of the work has also been completed on older video formats. In cooperation with the Zagreb-based company Video Prizma, around 1,700 audiovisual items from one- and two-inch and ¾-inch tapes, mostly created during the eighties and nineties, have been transferred to digital format.

A special part of the process is linked to 16-millimeter film. With equipment from the Danish company Fast Forward, a team of seven RTCG employees prepares and digitizes film material — in the first half of this year alone, 1,739 reels with program content from the seventies and eighties were processed. Alongside the digitization itself, a cataloging system has been operating at RTCG since June 2024, through which, before processing, various audio and video material carriers are recorded, together with the necessary metadata and images of the physical media. Some of the film reels are also restored and preserved in cooperation with the Cinematheque of Montenegro.

But the work is far from finished. The next major phase will include BETA SP/SX — the most numerous format in RTCG’s archive, with over 15,000 tapes. DVCPRO, VHS, audio tapes, vinyl and other formats continue as well, with automated material ingestion and control. It is precisely the different experiences with such processes that will be the topic of discussion in Podgorica — from technology and work organization to the question of how to make old archives accessible to contemporary television and its audience.

Source: RTCG