Middle East

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.”

DMA Media is setting up offices in the newly opened media zone in Abu Dhabi, twofour54. Its UAE subsidiary, DMA Middle East, will operate from there and is expecting a very busy year.

General Manager Chris O’Hearn said ‘the whole Gulf region is bursting with energy and needs world class media expertise. We’re in a good position to help to develop local talent in the region, and that’s very much our strategy.’ Chris added: ‘We believe the key to developing media is a healthy freelance market in the region, and twofour54 is working to make the UAE visa process much easier. There’s no shortage of good talent out there.’

Click here for Chris’ comments on the freelance visa situation in The National (the UAE’s leading English language newspaper).

DMA were the media partners for twofour54’s Intaj studios and production facilities, and have worked with the project since the very start. Now DMA is expanding its operations in the GCC and providing support and outsourced content services to broadcasters and companies throughout the Middle East.

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DMA Media supported the BBC World Service with the highly successful launch of Persian Television earlier this month.

The channel broadcasts news, current affairs and features programmes to more than 100 million Farsi speakers in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and other parts of the world.

DMA’s Rob Beynon was the Editorial Launch Director and nursed the project over a two-year period from its inception to its launch. Patrick Hubbard worked alongside him assisting with editorial and technical aspects of the channel.

The DMA team advised on everything from the planning and design of broadcast systems and studios, to recruitment of staff and programme line-ups.

Its modern, stylish look and authoritative content was greeted with an overwhelmingly positive reaction from Iranian viewers.

Abu Dhabi Media Company is building on the success of their English language newspaper. With help from DMA Media, Abu Dhabi TV has launched a daily TV news show based inside The National’s newsroom.

The ground-breaking programme covers all the day’s news and gives a preview of the following morning’s headlines. Presenter Crispin Thorold interviews the newspaper’s correspondents and a team of video journalists produce quick-turnaround packages.

The end result is a polished news magazine that combines quality journalism and stylish production.

The first edition hit the air on Sunday January 18, on time and on budget. The show was very well received DMA has been integral to the launch from inception to delivery.

We devised the original concept, delivered early pilots and helped ADTV find the right staff. Finally, we were on the ground to assist with the launch itself.