Digital BETACAM™ Dropout Detection

The Digital BETACAM™ tape format is a major digital, high-quality archiving format with first mass migration projects (from tape to file) starting in the near future. A major class of errors which may occur is digital tape dropout. They need to be found during migration of content into IT based storage systems, as later detection and repair causes higher costs due to the need of re-ingesting tapes or is even impossible when tapes are further degraded.

Within the DAVID project JOANNEUM RESEARCH is developing a content-based (essence-based) algorithm for the detection and repair of Digital BETACAM™ tape dropouts. We have developed initial detector prototypes for two specific dropout classes, as there are luminance dropouts and chrominance dropouts, by first, utilizing specific spatial properties of single blocks affected and second, by using also the spatiotemporal distribution of multiple affected blocks within the frames.

 

The detector supports two modes, the basic mode provides a decision about which frames within a video are damaged to which degree and the detailed mode provides the exact position of all damaged blocks within a single frame. The basic mode prototype of the Digital BETACAM™ tape dropout detector can be incorporated in essence QC systems like VidiCert, the detailed mode prototype can be utilized within AV media repair systems like DIAMANT.