Motion picture and video services

Tender description

The British Film Institute (BFI) aims to make its moving image collections available to audiences through the widest range of platforms and technologies. To help achieve these objectives the BFI intends to implement a framework agreement. The requirements are for digitisation and restoration of archival content across all formats. The BFI is seeking to augment the technical capacity within its Archive and Content departments. The BFI and its strategic partners are responsible for the preservation and accessibility of a significant share of the UK's film heritage. The film collections encompass the entire history of film production, and include examples of an extremely wide range of formats and systems. While the BFI maintains considerable expertise and machinery to support and preserve these formats through duplication, this Tender seeks a greater range and capacity through commercial provision. The BFI and its strategic partners are responsible for the preservation and accessibility of a significant share of UK audio visual heritage. It is universally accepted that content essentially ‘locked’ within obsolete tape-based audio and video recording systems are increasingly at risk due to the proprietary and commercially unsupported nature of the products used to create them over a period spanning many decades. While the BFI and its partners maintain considerable expertise and machinery to support and preserve these formats through digitisation, it is clear that greater capacity through commercial provision will be required to facilitate an accelerated programme of large-scale digitisation for video and audio content to provide suitable digital file formats and associated metadata for long-term preservation. The BFI and its strategic partners are responsible for the preservation and accessibility of a significant share of the UK's film heritage. The film collections encompass the entire history of film production, and include examples of an extremely wide range of formats and systems. While the BFI maintains considerable expertise and machinery to support and preserve these formats through duplication, this Tender seeks a greater range and capacity through commercial provision.