Media transformation tools

This is an umbrella page for project charters specific to media transformation tools work as part of the DRS Integration work. Full charters are developed for more specific projects in sub-pages.

I. Problem/Value Statement

Problem Statement

Part of the DRS Futures project consists of optimizing the data pipelines that feed the LTS delivery services and creating deliverable copies of files that are separate from their archival and production masters, using a format that is optimized for delivery rather than for long-time preservation. This should result in a drastic reduction of error rates and resource consumption of media delivery services.

Many deliverable files are currently produced by individual departments with ad-hoc developed or outsourced tools, without a central oversight on the quality of the resulting derivatives. A central service for creating derivatives specifically for delivery using community best practices and standards would drastically improve both the overall published media quality and Harvard staff's content production workflows.

Business Value

Creating delivery copies specifically optimized for delivery would have several advantages:

a. Derivatives can be optimized for delivery, resulting in more consistent, and overall much more efficient delivery;

b. Archival and production master files would have a clearly defined purpose and their quality control would be in the content managers' hands, while the optimization of delivery files would be controlled by LTS.

c. If a better encoding for delivery files were found in the future or requirements for delivery formats change, delivery files could be recreated from their masters, without the need to change the latter.

Moreover, campus-wide adoption of an LTS-managed, centralized file conversion tool to consistently produce high quality deliverables at high speed would remove the need for individual departments to come up with their own bespoke solutions for conversion, and would make it possible to completely automate the derivative generation, further relieving DRS stakeholders from repetitive and error-prone work.

II. Vision and Approach

[ To Do ]

Our vision aligns with the following Harvard Library multi-year goals and objectives (MYGOs):

• MYGO #8: Focus technical services on effective workflows and metadata that matter the most
  • By offering a centralized service for efficient, high-quality, and scalable processing of highly visible (public) files that can be used across campus we would encourage discontinuing one-off solutions that individual departments have been developing for lack of a better alternative, incurring in additional maintenance costs and inconsistent, often substandard output quality.
• MYGO #10: Focus on space as a service, considering the most cost-effective approaches to user interests, collections security and preservation, and staff needs in HL and HCL facilities
  • [ To Do ]
• MYGO #14: Minimize the environmental impact of collections, services, and spaces
  • As described in MYGO #10, the goal of this project is to save computing resources, thus reducing the environmental footprint of our services.

Our vision aligns with the following HUIT objectives and key results (OKRs): 

• Develop a plan for automation in each service area for critical, frequently used or heavily manual workflows
  • This project seeks to optimize one of the most critical and frequently used workflows in the content production chain.

III. In Scope/Out of Scope

In Scope

• [ To Do ]

Out of Scope

• [ To Do ]