A unique video archive which contains unseen footage of the foundation and development of Abu Dhabi and the UAE is being restored and digitised by DMA Media.

More than 30,000 pieces of film and video in Abu Dhabi Media Company’s vaults will be preserved for future generations. Some of the footage is in danger of degrading completely and DMA’s CEO Rob Beynon says “the restoration comes just in time to save a region’s heritage – it is very significant that ADMC is taking this important step now, while the archive is still mainly in reasonable quality.”

The project includes the restoration and preservation of the Sheikh Zayed Archive, which goes back to before the formation of the UAE.

DMA has started working on cataloguing, restoring and digitising the material. The archive is in several formats, each posing their own problems. Most of the material is 16mm and 35mm safety film but there are also 30 year-old items on 2” Quad video tape. This is particularly difficult to restore as the foam used to protect video reels frequently breaks down and coats the tape. Some of the material can only be played once before it degrades completely. To ensure the best possible results, DMA is bringing international experts to the UAE and is training staff in working with the damaged and unstable media.

Ahmed Al Menhali, deputy director of broadcast technology at ADMC, commented on this project saying: “We have thousands of pieces of footage that document our heritage and key events in the history of the UAE. We are lucky to have found the right expertise together with the right tools to save the endangered data which represents our heritage and reflects our history.”

The preservation of national archives is a problem across the region, according to Chris O’Hearn, DMA’s Middle East Projects Director. “Several countries around the region have huge stores of rare and historical footage archived using traditional media facing the risk of oxidizing and becoming of no value. Losing this footage would be a sad loss. It’s highly specialised work which DMA is uniquely qualified to carry out – and now is the time to carry it out, before it’s too late.”

Menhali said: “With DMA’s knowledge, state-of-the-art technology and expertise, we are sure that we will be able to restore and digitise all of our archives which will enable us to use them in the future as material for things like documentaries or TV programs.”

The film will be inspected, cleaned and physically repaired before being scanned and digitally restored. Images will be kept on XDCam disks and LTO data tapes – both digital formats while any 35mm films will be kept in HD, and are to be meta-tagged for easy retrieval.

“It’s a huge project, but as I said, it’s timely,” said O’Hearn. “It’s also perhaps a wake-up call for other national archives in the region – the time to act on preserving these important documents is actually now.”