Report of the SC-03-06 Working Group on Digital Library and Archive Systems of the SC-03 Subcommittee on the Preservation and Restoration of Audio Recording meeting, held in Amsterdam, 2008-05-19
The meeting was convened by C. Chambers, chair of SC-03.
The agenda was approved with one amendment introduced by the secretary of the AES standards committee. Since the agenda was published a new project had been assigned to SC-03-06 which is AES-X155. This project will be inserted into the agenda at the end of the development projects.
The report of the previous meeting, held in New York, NY., US., 2007-10-07, was accepted as written.
Open Projects
AES-X098B: Administrative and structural metadata for audio objects
Project scope: To collect information on all metadata issues pertaining to digital audio objects and all aspects of the digital documentation of digital audio objects. This scope includes field structures to describe and provide access to the audio content contained in digital files. It includes transfer, preservation and restoration information.
Status: Sec-formatted draft subject to final revisions
Intent: Standard , Initiated: 1999-12 , Target: 2008
Current goal: PCFC , Goal date: 2007-12
The chair explained the position of the three documents, originally developed under the single project AES-X098, known as AES-X098A, B and C. AES-X098A will be a matter for discussion in the SC-03-07 meeting scheduled to follow this meeting.
AES-X098B has been at the stage of a secretary formatted draft posted on the web site last October awaiting final revisions. The standards secretary reported that there have been some comments on the reflector which he believed had been resolved. These comments were reviewed at the meeting and the issue of whether a data layer is needed for optical disks was discussed. The meeting agreed that a data layer should be included in the document to cover the general case. It should be optional because a separate data layer is not required for pressed optical disks; however, a separate data layer will be necessary to provide a comprehensive description including recordable disc types.
Another comment pointed out that this document uses both microns and micrometres in differing places throughout the document. It was agreed that this should be made consistent with the SI unit of measurement and should be micrometres throughout.
The meeting then discussed the issue of the use of the word "Administrative" in the title and the possible confusion in the future. It was proposed that the wording shoud be clarified to meet the expectation of the recently published AES-R9 report that suggests that metadata sets should stand alone with clear descriptions. In continued discussion an alternative title for the document was proposed, "Audio object structural metadata". The definitions will be reviewed by the standard secretary following this meeting and discussed with the chairman of the group.
The next stage for this document will be a final working group draft to be reviewed by this group before it goes for formal Call for Comment.
It was noted that many interested parties were awaiting publication of this document and the meeting agreed that this document should be processed towards publication as soon as possible.
AES-X098C: Administrative metadata for audio objects - Process history schema
Project scope: To collect information on all metadata issues pertaining to digital audio objects and all aspects of the digital documentation of digital audio objects. This scope includes field structures to describe and provide access to the audio content contained in digital files. It includes transfer, preservation and restoration information.
Status: New revision expected before 2008-05
Intent: Standard , Initiated: 1999-12 , Target: 2008
Current goal: PWD , Goal date: 2008-05
An early draft of this document was posted very recently. It was noted that the definitions discussed in the AES-X098B document should be repeated in this document.
It is clear that this document embodies a great deal of work and it was felt that the group will have to study this outside the meeting. Again the title of this document was discussed and it was proposed that the secretary will apply a new title as a part of the output from this meeting. This new version of AES-X098C will be available of the FTP site for study and discussion at the next meeting.
AES-X155: Production metadata interchange (iXML)
This is a proposal brought to the AES by the Institute of Broadcast Sound and came out of the need to carry production metadata in a Broadcast Wave file. This was developed by practical users in the field into an extensible data set using XML coding, and carried in an additional RIFF chunk. It is now in common use and supported by many audio products.
A discussion then ensued over the risk that this proposal will have to go through the AES procedures and it was hoped that these issues can be worked through if they occurred.
The standards secretary suggested that the scope and title should be modified to accommodate the different meaning of the word "production" by members in general. The issues of managing URLs were discussed and it was agreed that appropriate URLs should be posted the AES web site so these can be managed with the document as a standard in the future. This will leave the IBS free to continue with ongoing development of this work which can be managed as updates or amendments of the AES standard in a controlled way.
There are clearly a number of definitions and references that need completing in the current draft and it was proposed that C. Woolf would led a small task group to complete this document. The chair encouraged the use of this group's reflector to start this work running. It was hoped that by next meeting they will be able to present a completed draft for consideration.
Liaisons
It was proposed that an informal liaison be made with the Institute of Broadcast Sound.
New Projects
None proposed.
New Business
No new business was proposed.
The next meeting will be scheduled in conjunction with the AES125th Convention in San Francisco, CA., US., 2008-10.
