4000 Films on Demand!
The NFB MEDIATHEQUE in Toronto is a unique facility, offering intimate film viewing experiences for groups and individuals of the National Film Board of Canada's award-winning collection.
The NFB collection is stored on a 7 terabyte hard disk array using MPEG-4 format for encoding. More than a compression standard, MPEG-4 provides interactivity and superior image quality. MPEG-4 integrates multimedia content, facilitating interactive and feature-rich applications such as closed captioning and subtitling.
The collection on the hard-disk array will be complemented with Canarie’s broadband Network, CA*Net 4. CA*net 4 uses a 40-gigabyte bandwidth system that streams the quality of DVDs at an average of 10 megabits per second. For comparison, the Internet currently streams data an average of 300-500 kilobits per second. Currently, cinema-quality images are streamed to schools, universities and other research facilities on the CANARIE Network.
A growing selection of the NFB's collection will be accessible at all 24 screens at the NFB MEDIATHEQUE, including digital viewing stations, the Atelier and the 79-seat Cinema. The personal viewing screens are superior image quality HDTVs, offering high-definition flat-screen 16x9 cinema display.
All digital viewing station users have instant access to NFB productions. With the simple touch of a finger on a screen, people can browse the NFB's online catalogue through an advanced multi-criteria search engine and immediately watch the film of their choice on demand and at their own pace. The collection is easily browsable due to the extensive cataloguing, indexing and database integration. The visual index includes nine still images and an excerpt from each film. This adds a special dimension to the screening experience, facilitating research for professionals, cinephiles and the curious.
The NFB began preparing its collection for on-line and on demand use, before the Internet was widely used by the public. Comprehensive visual and subject indexation started 20 years ago to allow precise access to the NFB collections and answer the specific needs of the public. Providing visual and data information with all NFB materials allows users to fully search the collection and affords a better understanding of the film before the viewing experience.
National Film Board of Canada Production
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