Content Production Technologies

2

Content Production from Digital Archives

Haruo Hiki

The digitization of audio and visual information brought us various benefits: no quality degradation in copying, high-compression capability, and easy data management. In this chapter these benefits are made good use of for content production from digital archives. Content production requires information management from planning to distribution. Here the several steps involved in content production are described from the point of view of a digital archive.

Content production can be divided into three major parts: pre-production, production, and post-production. Figure 2.1 shows these three parts. In such a system new content always requires new filming or new computer graphics (CG) creations to compose the story: that is, each time new content is produced, all the necessary materials for the content should be newly shot or created. Let us look at what the three major parts entail:

• Pre-production – this is the intellectual and creative work undertaken at the preparation stage of the content production, such as planning, scripting, or raising funds.
• Production – this represents acquisition and creation and includes filming on location and in a studio, as well as CG creation. One application of this CG technology that has recently attracted a great deal of attention is the virtual studio. There are two types of virtual studios: one is where the video is produced by CG alone without filming; the other type is where filming and ...