title: A Novel Metadata Standard for Multimedia Preservation
creators: Walter Allasia Wo Chang Sergiu Gordea Werner Bailer
abstract: This paper introduces the motivation and describes the model of a novel metadata standard for the exchange of preservation metadata of multimedia content. The model is being standardised as the MPEG Multimedia Preservation Application Format (MPAF), addressing the specific issues related to the preservation description information of audiovisual contents. Several standards for expressing metadata in digital preservation are available and have been taken into consideration in the paper and in the work done in MPEG. However, none of them is able to cover all the needed aspects related to the preservation of audiovisual content. Audiovisual files are in most cases containers and are usually made up of several tracks carrying audio data, video data and specific time-based metadata. In order to be able to perform the opportune preservation actions (among others planning and format migration), several kinds of information must be kept alongside the audiovisual contents. Within this context a standardised representation for these structures and metadata is needed. Information such as quality description or fixity at frame level is required for ensuring long term access to visual content. Without using a standardised interface it is hard to guarantee a faithful rendering of encoded information while exchanging contents between different repositories, either internally or with external institutions. This paper describes the work done so far within MPEG for defining a standard metadata model which covers the identified missing parts and gaps regarding the acquisition of digital preservation description information.
keywords: digital preservation multimedia metadata preservation description information oais audiovisual content preservation standard