User:Vince Hummer/sandbox

BELGAVOX

The Belgavox film image bank is one of the most important film libraries in Belgium, containing some 5,000 kilometres of 35 mm film.

This archive constitutes an exceptional "audiovisual documentary heritage" representing +/- 18,000 "current events" from (1937 to 1994) covering all sectors, national and international, cultural, political, social, heritage and economic. In total, about 800 hours of reports in French and Dutch covering the second half of the 20th century!

History

In 1937, Georges Fannoy founded the Société belge de distribution cinématographique (SBDC) and distributed feature films to cinemas, as well as the French newsreel Éclair Journal, and created its Belgian counterpart: Éclair Journal Belge.

The news paper was stopped during the Second World War, but resumed in 1945 under the title : Belgavox was created to meet the need of the Belgians to have their own information channels.

This makes it the oldest Belgian production company and one of the oldest in Europe.

These 'news' programmes were shown at the beginning of each week in 300 cinemas. They consisted of 50% Belgian news items, 25% international items and 25% items from sports competitions.

In 1956, Georges Fannoy founded INNA, the International Newsfilms and Newsreel Association, a UNESCO-recognised association of newsreel producers from all over the world. Belgavox has always played an active role in this association, which has enabled the company to regularly exchange reports from all over the world with the other members of the association.

INNA's partners are spread over different continents: China, Russia, Germany (FRG and GDR) in Africa with Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Congo. In South and Central America with Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and of course all the European countries. In total, about a hundred countries throughout the world.

In 1955, Belgavideo was created to ensure the international programming of the Belgian television news of the RTB (now RTBF) and the BRT (now VRT).

Pierre Fannoy, cameraman and director who took over the management of the news programme, created in 1964 the Congolese Television (RTNC) and Congovox, the African equivalent of Belgavox. Pierre Fannoy is also the inventor of television on demand (1963). VOD was then called Sélévision.

The Congovox archives are unique, they are the only testimony of Congolese life from 1960 to 1974.

In 1985, with the help of his sons Philippe and Vincent, he provided the nascent Cameroonian television (CRTV-Télé) with the necessary teams to produce its programmes.

The advent of television and its growing role as an information tool led Belgavox to change the formula of its news programmes: news programmes broadcast in cinemas were gradually replaced by news magazines.

Belgavox has now left the cinema and is devoting itself to the production of programmes such as thematic programmes and documentary films. Belgavox is also very active in research for the improvement of archive management, both from a media point of view and from a semantic database point of view.

As a member of the "Titan" Consortium, the future of digital, Belgavox also works with its partner Perfect Memory to make its archives more accessible.

Recognised by the Association of the Filmed Press (AGJPB)

Belgavox images are now accessible via the Belgavox website: https://www.belgavox.net

With a catalogue of some 18,000 news reports, Belgavox has become one of the most important sources of audiovisual content in Belgium and sells these documents in Belgium, France and abroad. Unique and highly sought-after, this content constitutes an audiovisual memory, a real documentary heritage, a collective conscience, a testimony of the 20th century. The revenues generated have made it possible to finance two technological changes: the switch to video at the end of the 1980s and the digitisation of content in the mid-2000s. After the challenge of high definition (HD), the market is now talking about 4K, 5K-HDR for film media!

In order to keep up with this technological development, the company initially transferred almost 80% of these archives to SD video media using a telecine. Then, digitisation generated file formats from the video cassette media. Each time, this required considerable efforts in terms of asset management, data transfer, financial resources, etc. for a company that has remained deeply rooted in the family.

Aware of the importance of technological developments, Belgavox has been the driving force behind various research projects, with a view to enhancing the value of this audiovisual heritage not only for its own films but also for the archiving of numerous European and African televisions (in particular via involvement in the AIME project of Cirtef). These include: Sinatra (digital archive image server and audiovisual research techniques), SINAMMA (digital archive image server for the Mediterranean and the Arab world), NODAL and PORTAL (standardisation of the price structure of the archives of various suppliers RTBF - RTL-TVI - ERT - ORF - BELGAVOX in order to allow visibility on broadcasting rights). And finally MEDIAMAP (study and development of information modelling technologies to enhance and enrich relational databases with Internet languages (RDF/OWL).

Vincent Fannoy, grandson of the founder and managing director since 2015, continues the family tradition and aspires to perpetuate the archives through 4K digitisation and to encourage the dissemination of the archives to current and future generations.

"These images are a unique moment that allows us to see, hear and analyse a specific moment in our history with the eyes of the time. It is the first time in the history of humanity that we can dive back into the past with sound and image without the filter of the present. A treasure for teachers, students, researchers and documentalists.

web site: https://www.belgavox.net