12 Million Historic Photos Scanned to Web

Snosty writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that British Pathe, a cinema news service dating to the 19th century, has scanned one image for every second of their 3500 hours of 35mm film. That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles available on their web site!"

Comments

Hi-Res?

[Brahmastra]

Are the scans Hi-Res so that photo quality prints can be reproduce well into the future? The article seems to say they are streamlined for download over a 56K Modem. I hope there are Hi-Res versions available too

Re:Hi-Res?

[Knights who say 'INT]

I took a couple of courses on film archiving and preservation back when I was a film school student, so I guess I have a couple of things to point out here.

1) One would think they want to profit from licensing the hi-res images for commercial use. I don't really know if it's okay to release important images from important early films that geeks of my kind value and cherish for commercial iconographic use just per se. I understand BP's need to be financially compensated for their trouble, but at least do it for money.

and, 2) Proper preservation must be taken in the original form. 35mm films should be transcribed to 35mm so they can be watched in original form in the future. I think nitrate must be sacrificed (even though they say it has a different glow on projeciton) and acetate used instead, but the importance of original media in film archiving is not to be understated.

This is a subject that really touches a nerve down with my deepest feelings, so, um, forgive me if I got cocky or arrogant or anything.

holy crap!

[beady]

A use for the Storage Tank perhaps

Yes

[3.5 stripes]

But you have to purchase them.

I saw the site yesterday. Nice resource.

Perfect job for interns!

[DrFlex]

Here in Canada, internship salaries are partly financed by the government.

The job of scanning 1 image of every second of 3500 hours worth of footage seems like the perfect intership.

Starts out interesting...
Quickly becomes boring...
After a while you want to throw up each time you make a scan...
Half way through you actually throw up every time you scan a second...
When you're done, all that is left is an insensible blow of twitching flesh!

Historical benefit

[BWJones]

So, the posting of photographic archives like this are crucial to historians and historical research. It is absolutely amazing how much information can be gleaned from photographs in terms of street names, individuals, automobile license plates etc... that enable one to pull out the history from bits of information surrounding the subject in photographs. Recently, I was given access to an archive of photos from my late grandfather who was in the OSS, and I am absolutely amazed at the amount of history in these photos. There are images of the meeting with Stalin, Rosevelt and Churchill, images of partisans stringing up Musolini, images of streets and individuals that I would absolutely love to spend time investigating, perhaps even getting another Ph.D. thesis out of it.

Re:Historical benefit

[Threni]

"That's exactly why everyone with a camera, regardless of skill or quality of equipment, should take photos of mundane objects in their neighborhood."

I don't think there's going to be a shortage of mundane photographs anytime soon - especially with the fact that you can't even buy a mobile phone now without it having a camera embedded in it.

> Was their writing on it?

It probably was their writing, yes.

>How many close-ups of fire hydrants as they were >installed 100 years ago exist?
>What was a typical telephone pole like 100 years ago?

Man, are you tripping?

Uhh, not quite...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Uhh, no, not quite accurate. I tried looking at the archive after reading this story on the BBC yesterday. It was down then, so I'm not surprised it's still down now. More a case of BBCed than slashdotted.

Give them a few days to realise that their press releases were a bit more effective than they originally anticipated and I'm sure that the site will be alright.

Will we feel the wrath when...

[DMCBOSTON]

...the /. 'ers remember who bought the Bettmann Archive?
According to the article, "Peter Fydler, archive marketing director at..." which implies they WILL sell it, probably commercially to news organizations or whatever (think History Channel)seems balanced by "By using the newsreel archive to create a huge collection of still images, people can have access free of charge to printable pictures, which will add to their enjoyment of history," he said.
So it seems that this archive will be freely available for non-commercial and research use.

Just the B's?

[worst_name_ever]

That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles

How many images will there be once they finish the rest of the alphabet?

Re:Archives of historic/public-domain images?

[abevilac]

The Library of Congress has a long term project called "American Memory" which collects images in American history though some are copyrighted others are public domain. http://memory.loc.gov/

From the site:

[RenderMonkey]

"Now you are here you can preview items from the entire 3500 hour British Pathe Film Archive which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970.

"You can also license higher resolution copies of the same items for PowerPoint Presentations and Web Publishing, or simply buy a still from the item for private use.

"Requests for other rights or formats should be addressed to archive.sales@itn.co.uk Just type in what you are looking for above and within minutes you could own a little piece of history!"

Their FAQ sortof addresses the allowable uses of the previews:

"What am I allowed to do with my free Preview Files?

"They were made available on-line principally as an educational resource. We hope that they will stimulate an interest in modern history amongst younger people, and help older generations to understand the 20th century in a broader context.

"We encourage users to share Preview Files that they download with colleagues and friends around the world via e-mail. We would ask that this is not achieved by publishing Preview Files on-line. The only instance where we feel this might be appropriate is within a closed user group in an educational environment.

"Above all we would like users to enjoy discovering the past through our wonderful archive, and would hope that in return the images downloaded are not misused in any way."

Really specific there, one would think they could come up with a slightly more defined policy.

On the site that handles sales of British Pathe assets they specifically state that:

"The British Pathe archive is perhaps the world's most famous newsreel collection. Spanning the period 1896-1970, the collection comprises 3,500 hours and contains some of the most iconic images ever caught on camera. The entire archive has been remastered and fully digitised. It is now possible to view every second of this outstanding collection online through this web site and there is absolutely no charge for this facility.

"Unfortunately, British Pathe material is not available for license to companies based in North America or other NTSC territories."

Of course that is for the actual footage, no help with licensing for the still images though. A great archive and it will be an excellent resource for many. Hopefully they can clarify the use of the preview still images though.

Free stuff on archive.org

[Bazman]

www.archive.org has a fantastic collection of free movies, including some newsreels, all free to use and redistribute - look here.

The Prelinger archive there is a wonderful treasury of historical material. And the free license means you can cut n paste any of it into your own video projects.

Well, let's see...

[RealisticWeb.com]

3500 hrs = 210000 min = 12,600,000 seconds

At one picture per second, that comes out to 12.6 million pictures for the whole alphabet. My guess is that the 3500 hr estimate was a bit hight which would bring the actually number closed to 12 mil even for the whole thing.

Oh, you were kidding!...nevermind