Digital Media Projects Lab

SIS houses a Digital Media Projects Lab in Kresge Library room 301. The lab, which came online in Fall 2012 and updated in Spring/Summer 2019, consists of four workstations for students to learn hands on digitization of analog media. The lab allows for the digitization of audio, video, still-image analog formats and ¼" reel-to-reel audio.

 

"'Digital Media Projects Lab Audio Station

The lab itself is painted in Munsell N7 grey and tries to be as color neutral as possible. We provide locked storage for any materials loaned to us by local cultural institutions and we hope to soon bring in more climate control as well.

There are 4 large workstations total:

  • 2 video workstations equipped with Osprey analog video capture cards and VCRs. The video feed is split to a small monitor prior to digitization so students can monitor both the digitized and analog feed as they work.
  • 2 audio workstations equipped with a Benchmark Analog-Digital Converter, Tascam cassette deck, Audio-Technica turntable and a Mackie mixer to tie everything together. The setup is such that we can easily incorporate new analog playback devices into the digitization chain.

All workstations include a scanner: either a consumer-level Epson Perfection or a professional Epson Expression 10000XL, which can scan at 2400dpi and do large formats and transparent media like negatives. All workstations also have 24-inch, color-calibrated monitors and 5000K task lamps for color-sensitive work. The workstations also provide power conditioning for analog playback devices and battery backup for all devices. Lastly, all workstations have two or more screens, a soundbar, and headphones.

Software at all workstations includes a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, NVivo, and the Microsoft Office Suite. The workstations also incorporate a fair number of open source alternatives, such as Audacity and VLC Media Player.

There is a dedicated network-attached storage device for the lab. It provides 16TB of shared storage for long term storage of digitized objects. Our DSpace digital repository instance is also available and is tied directly to this shared storage to ensure that digital objects stay in their original condition over time.

DMPL Software

Software available to students and faculty*:

  • 7-Zip
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Audacity
  • Epson Scan software
  • Google Chrome
  • Java
  • Microsoft Office Suite
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • OBS
  • VLC Media Player

Specialized software available to students and faculty*:

  • Archivists' Toolkit
  • BitCurator
  • BitVise
  • Cyberduck
  • Filezilla
  • iTunes
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • NCH Express Scribe transcription software (Free version)
  • NCH Suite (Free version)
  • Oracle Virtualbox
  • Oxygen XML Editor
  • PuTTY
  • Screencast-O-Matic

Other software available to faculty upon request include ArchivesSpace, DSpace, and Omeka.

*Please note that software availability is subject to change. For questions about software availability and use please contact Kimberly Schroeder at ag1797@wayne.edu