THL Toolbox > Audio-Video > Cataloging Audio-Video > Cataloging Audio-Video Titles Manual

Cataloging Audio-Video Titles Manual

Contributor(s): David Germano.

Introduction

"Titles" is a technical term to refer to actual audio or video units that have been selected out/edited from the original tapes to constitute a title that we want to present to the public for use. From a user's point of view, titles are what he/she comes to see and hear. The user doesn't search for specific video files or specific transcript/annotation files. He/she searches for a title that has associated media files and transcripts. From the data model point of view, a title is the metadata for a given media resource regardless of status or format/s of that resource. A title could represent a 30 second digitized audio clip that resides on a server, or it could represent an, as yet undigitized, two hour lecture spread across three different video tapes.

The THL Title Catalog thus keeps track of these titles, as well as providing details on their content and the status of work processing them (cataloging, compression, transcription, translation, etc.). It thus functions both as a work flow database, and a cataloging system.

Each cataloging record is displayed as organized under tabs arrayed in a single row at the top of the screen. When editing, it is essential to note that NO changes are saved until you click on the green "submit" tab at the far right. The "continue" button for each tab simply moves you to the next tab, but does NOT save your work.

A. General: General Content

THL ID

Each title has a unique ID number which is automatically assigned by the Catalog.

Title

This is a simple title which is the main label by which the video is referred. As is generally the case with titles of movies, it is a clause rather than full sentence.

When creating audio-video titles, each title requires a formal name which must adhere to the following principles. These titles are not easily changed, since they are rendered in English, Tibetan and Chinese, and actually inserted into the video as title slates. Hence they must be formally approved and carefully selected. In terms of translation, the title should be as close as possible in the various languages, while accomodating for issues of clear meaning and smooth reading.

Don't give titles like "Kapstein Reader 2.1 Anthology Verses" which is a title biased to a specific use of video - namely the fact that it is an oral commentary on a piece of traditional Tibetan literature contained in this reader - but instead name it based on its general content, which in this case is, "An Oral Commentary on the Lek shé ché tü, an Anthology of Classical Tibetan Poetry". Given the need to reach out to a broader audience, it is also advisable in referring to texts to give the full title in the original language, but also add a description of the content.

The following are principles to follow:

1. Captions should be no more than one line. Anything longer should be relegated to the description field.
2. Use THL simplified phonetics for all English entries. Do not use Wylie transliteration. http://www.thdl.org/xml/showEssay.php?xml=/collections/langling/THDL_phonetics.xml
3. Tibetan and Chinese titles should be finalized according to translations by native speakers. However, non-native speakers may provisionally input basic information in Tibetan or Chinese, such as the names of texts already given in Tibetan, etc.
4. For all translations of technical terminology, consult the THL AV Title Lexicon and follow its recommendations, or create a new translation equivalent and add to it.
5. Put the specific content first and then general content second which helps visual browsing when dealing with series. For multiple titles belonging to a single series, the format should be: "Individual Title Name: A selection from <i>Series Name #01</i>" for example, "A Couple Must Part: Three's Company #01".
6. After colons (":") there should be only ONE space.
7. Also, avoid the use of insider language: don't refer to it as the "Kapstein Reader", but rather its proper name "A Reader of Classical Tibetan".

Title Equivalents in Tibetan and Chinese

THL is updating the catalog so that all AV titles have Tibetan and Chinese equivalents. There are corresponding fields for caption, description, etc. to be filled out just as for the English title. If you have a title of a text in Tibetan, as an English speaker you can provisionally fill a title in the Tibetan title, caption, or description field; the English title field will use the THL phonetic system as per the titling principles above. Native speakers should be creating and approving these titles for all three languages.

Caption

This is a one sentence description that is more descriptive than the title and can be displayed in search results for quick assessment of the title's content. Use the general form of "This title is…", or "This title concerns…". Don't say "This media…" "Title" is the general word we are using. When referring to titles of texts, precede the title with "the": thus "selections from the Lek shé ché tü", not "selections from Lek shé ché tü". Again refer to its content, "the Lek shé ché tü, an Anthology of Classical Tibetan Poetry", not just "Lek shé ché tü".

For still images, there could then be a subset of this. These would be a one to two sentence description of the picture which can then be brought into a program like Powerpoint as headers. This will be the most general level of description. Certainly particular types of presentations of the data will want to provide different types of short headers along these lines, depending on the focus of the presentation. For example, a picture of a building with a man in front of it could require a one sentence description that points out the man's dress, the building's front door, the building as an example of architecture in Kongpo, an example of how men do nothing but stand around, etc. However, this provides a generic header that will often be useful. It should be multiple, and have an associated specifer "type", so that people can record captions for variable purposes. Our standard caption will be of type "General", but then for specific reasons we would come up with other types suited to that purpose. These need a "creator" tag so we can document who did it, who may not be the photographer. Thus each has a "type" and "creator" tag.

Description

Try to give as much detail as possible along the lines of a paragraph. Thus, rather than "Professor Dekyi from Tibet University gives a commentary on selections from Lek shé ché tü (Beijing: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1981)", add details about what these selections where, there content and so forth.

Recording Situation

This field should be filled in with any relevant notes about how the video came to be made. For example it might describe how the videographers stumbled across a singer doing work in a farm field, and decided to ask to tape folk songs; or it might describe how professional actors were hired to film something, and so forth.

Thematic Classification

This section allows you to choose which high and low level content markers are appropriate for this title. One picture might have multiple content types - for example a picture of interest for the landscape, and for animals. These are both markable in the high and low level fields.

Keywords

Also found under the Thematic classification section, you can enter keywords for searching by viewers.

Collection/series/subseries

This three tiered scheme creates collections, which are divided into series, and further divided into subseries for formal presentation within THL. At present this work is done at the Collections Management page or at the Title actions page, and not within the individual cataloging of titles.

Content Quality

Technical quality - video The choices are as following:

• excellent
• good
• mediocre
• poor

Technical quality - audio The choices are as following:

• excellent
• good
• mediocre
• poor

Thumbnail (This is a text field to hold the filename of an image file that gives a photo to serve as a thumbnail emblem of the title.) The choices are as following:

• excellent
• good
• mediocre
• poor

B. Setting: Space and Time

These fields are intended to record the setting of the footage itself and of the cultural content therein.

Recording date: YYYY-MM-DD

Recording time: YYYY-MM-DD

Note This can be used if you don't have precise times or dates, and want to indicate a range, or make a note as to how the date/time might have been relevant to the content of the title.

Recording Administrative Location

This field specifies the location of where the actual recording was originally made. The location is based upon contemporary administrative locations, not ethno-linguistic regions.

Recording Cultural Location

This specifies the same as the previous field, but gives the location in terms of ethno-linguistic regions rather than administrative regions. The choices are as follows:

• dbus
• gtsang
• rkong po
• lho ga
• dwags po
• khams
• a mdo
• byang thang
• mnga' ris

Recording Location Point of Interest

This allows for one to type in a very specific location beyond the general administrative location, such as a specific house and so forth.

Content Administrative Location

This field specifies the location of content that is centrally involved in the actual recording wholly apart from where it may have been made. The location is based upon contemporary administrative locations, not ethno-linguistic regions.

Content Cultural Location

This specifies the same as the previous field, but gives the location in terms of ethno-linguistic regions rather than administrative regions.

Setting Type

The choices are as following:

• kitchen
• monastic
• lake
• forest
• hospital
• bar
• restaurant
• park
• courtyard
• workplace
• village
• modern home
• traditional home
• small clinic
• hotel

Setting Note

This field allows for descriptive notes to be put in about the setting beyond the simple choice of the "type". Thus one might explain some particulars about the setting, or specifics as to how it affected the video content and so forth.

C. Language: Language Specifics

Language

This is the language of the original media's content. Current choices:

• Chinese
• English
• French
• German
• Nepali
• Tibetan

Tibetan Dialect Family

This fields need to be added to specify the dialect family if the language(s) of the media's content is Tibetan. Because our project has a standard way of typing dialects of Tibetan, we have made this a specific, dedicated field. It is multiple select. Choices are as follows:

• Tibetan- dbus gtsang
• Tibetan- khams hor
• Tibetan- 'bras ljongs-rdzong kha
• Tibetan- a mdo
• Tibetan- la dwags sbal ti
• Tibetan- spyi skad

Use "Ü-Tsang" for not only Ü-Tsang natives but also those who have lived in the region for years, and are speaking with such linguistic conventions. For the time being, do not use the designation "spyi skad".

Specific Dialect

This is a box where you can fill in the name of the dialect of the language spoken in the media, if relevant. For Tibetan, this allows the specification of the specific dialect within the overarching dialect family specified in the previous field, such as Tibetan > dbus tsang > Lhasa. Use "Lhasa" for not only Lhasa natives but also those who have lived in the region for years, and are speaking with such linguistic conventions in a fluent fashion.

Dialect Note

This is a free text note that allows for more specific comments to be made about the dialect.

Speech Type

This documents the format of the speech. The choices are as follows:

• conversation
• lecture
• interview
• song
• drama

Speech Methods

This documents the way in which the speech was elicited, regardless of its type. The choices are as follows:

• Natural: this signifies that the speech is simply "overhead" speech that is occurring naturally but happens to have been videotaped. In other words, it is speech which is not at all done for the camera, but rather is "overheard" by the camera and otherwise is pretty much just "natural" speech that would have happened anyway and is a product of an actual event, whether that event is friends sitting around, a job situation, or whatever.

• Scripted: this signifies the speech was actually scripted ahead of time and is being performed from those scripts. For example, dialogues from the Manual of Standard Tibetan performed by actors.
• Interviews: this signifies a formal interview where one person is questioning another about a specific topic, such as an intellectual topic, the nature of an institution, an oral history, and so forth. An interview is natural in that it is what it is, but interview is a separate category to be used in that regard. A presentation by a woodworker, etc. on their craft or topic is a lecture if it's a monologue, and hence should be classified as "natural".
• Improvised: this is speech which is not read from a script or memorized, but is produced for the event of the recording. Thus actors are given a topic to perform, and they improvise speech on that topic for the recording.

Speech Methods Note

This is a free text box for adding addition notes about the speech methods if desired/relevant.

Speech Register

This documents the formality of the speech. The choices are as follows:

• Informal: might apply to the slang-filled, intimate conversation between two friends.
• Ordinary: would be more like an ordinary exchange between two people who aren't so familiar, but neither are they overly polite and formal with each other.
• Formal: might apply to a very formal discussion between an employer and job applicant.

Speech Difficulty

This field gauges the difficulty of the linguistic content in terms of how easy or difficult it is to comprehend by a non-native speaker. "Advanced" means the content is generally advanced in terms of difficulty of understanding, while "advanced specific context" signifies that it involves specific vocabulary items relevant to a given topic and is advanced because of it. For example, "advanced specific context" might be a medical diagnosis which is incomprehensible if you don't know the medical terminology; or a lecture on chemistry, and so forth. The choices are as following:

• beginning
• intermediate
• advanced
• advanced specific context

Speech Quality

This is a free text box that assesses the quality of the speech recorded based upon considerations of how staged or artificial the speech is, how well the speakers speak in general as exemplars of the dialect they speak, and so forth. Choices are as follows:

• Superior
• Good
• Average
• Inferior

Linguistic Notes

This field provides a free text box for inserting any comments one might want to make about the language used within the title, including about the above drop down choice fields. I.e.: if one wants to make a narrative comment about "speech quality", one does so here.

Literary Type

This field applies when the audio-video concerns a reading or oral commentary on a text. It specifies whether the text in question is ancient Tibetan, classical Tibetan, or modern literary Tibetan. The choices are as following:

• gna' rabs
• srol rgyun gyi rtsom rig
• deng rabs rtsom rig

Please note that literary genre at present is dealt with in the collections management - in other words, in the Tibetan Literary Oral Commentaries collections, the series and subseries will indicate literary genres when the title concerns a reading or commentary on a piece of literature.

D. Credits: Copyright and Credits

Copyright

This field will be used to specify the copyright arrangements; both who owns them, and what the policy is in terms of the use of the tape. Eventually we will make abbreviated references to a standard range of THL copyright arrangements, which will be linked to a page that details them. For now just enter the necessary data.

Credits

At present this is simply an internally formatted field devoid of any drop down menus connected to independent people databases, for now they should simply be filled in manually. It looks like this:

Performers (include roles): Director: Videographer: Production Assistants: Editor: Logger: Transcriber: Translator: Sponsor: Other Acknowledgements:

Participants/Informants

This section documents the names and roles of all the diverse individuals involved in the process of creating the original recordings and processing tapes out of those recordings. Please see the Particpants Correlation page for a list of people involved.

Consent Status

This field is a drop down menu of the following choices which specifies the status of getting signed consent forms from all participants recorded in the title:

• Form(s) finished:
• Form(s) part finished: in case there are multiple people, and not all are finished but some are.
• Form(s) unfinished:

Bio Form Status

This field is a drop down menu of the following choices which specifies the status of getting signed consent forms from all participants recorded in the title:

• Form(s) finished:
• Form(s) part finished: in case there are multiple people, and not all are finished but some are.
• Form(s) unfinished:

Consent/Bio Form Note

This is a memo field to describe a complex consent situation, or make any other relevant notes about the consent and bio-form status. One of the most typical notes is to indicate that these were recorded on paper or on the video itself, as well as where the paper forms might be stored.

E. Transcript

The Transcript tab provides the most current transcript, as well as a link to the entire history of all transcripts.

However one has to go instead to the "Title Actions" area to do work directly with transcripts. That allows one to create a new transcript, check out an extant transcript to work on it, check in an updated transcript, or view the entire history of all versions of the transcript, including direct links to each version.

If the transcript is not currently being worked on, it should be "checked in" and at the top of this area it will ask you if you want to "check it out". If you click on that link, a dialog box will ask you what work you plan to do with the transcript and allow you check it out for revision.

Workflow history is hotlinked, and allows you to see the full list of versions of transcripts from begining to present with the agent behind each one listed. All of these can be downloaded directly. Thus whether it is checked in or out, you can always download all versions of the transcript available. However if someone has already checked it out, you should NOT do new work on the transcript.

F. Technical: Technical Metadata

Original Source Tape

This holds the THL ID# of the original media(s) from which the title was created, which in most cases will be tape(s).

Original Tape Segments (EDL file)

This is a text field to hold the filename of an Edit Decision List (EDL) file. The EDL contains exact metadata correlating the use of multiple source tapes in a single title.

Master Tape Name This is a field that allows you to select a Master Tape if the title in question has been recorded onto one. Choices thus far include:

• NDRP Master 1
• NDRP Master 2

Start Timecode (SMPTE)

This is a text field to record the start time for segments and titles. For segments, this refers to the source tape. For titles, this refers to the master tape. The format is hh:mm:ss;ff.

Stop Timecode (SMPTE)

This is a text field to record the stop time for segments and titles. For segments, this refers to the source tape. For titles, this refers to the master tape. The format is hh:mm:ss;ff.

Duration (SMPTE)

This is a text field to record the time duration for segments and titles. For segments, this refers to the source tape. For titles, this refers to the master tape. The format is hh:mm:ss;ff.

G. Workflow: Title Workflow Information

Priority

This is used to mark the importance of the title in terms of our workflow so staff can focus on high priority items. Priority can be marked as follows:

• high
• medium
• low

Is this title presentable?

This is a simple box that is checked if it has been done, and is left unchecked if it has not yet been done. "Presentable" means that an editor has decided the title is ready to be seen in THL's public view of the audio-video titles.

Who approved presentability?

This is a drop down list of the name of the editor who has approved the title for being presented to the public. This field is constrained to users logged in with an authority of 3, or Approver.

Title Finished Date

This is a date field (ODBCDateTime format) that holds the date at which the title was made presentable.

Editing Status

This pertains to the status of the editing of the title from the original tapes, and has the following choices:

• Not yet begun
• In process
• Completed

Edited by

This is a drop down list of names from which one specifies the name of the editor of the title.

Edit Date

This is a field to hold the date and time of the editing.

Edit Job Finalized by

This is a drop down list of names from which one specifies the name of the person who approved the editing as final.

Mastering Status

A master is DV-quality (i.e. uncompressed) footage of edited/finished titles copied over to a tape. The choices are as following:

• Not yet begun
• In process
• Completed.

Mastering Date

This holds the date and time at which the title was mastered.

Mastered by

This is a drop down list of names from which one specifies the name of the person who mastered the title.

Workflow Status

This is a free text entry box for notes. The rule is one line = one note, with the first letter of every line capitalized. Try to be as specific as possible in your notes so that others can understand easily. The most recent comments should be placed at the top of the field; older notes will successively gravitate to the bottom of the field. Each new comment under Workflow notes should be on its own, new line. (Do not just add your new comment, with extra spaces, after someone's older comment.) When entering Workflow notes, be specific. Do not record private notes-to-self; rather, include enough details such that your comments will make sense to other THL staff. For example, instead of just noting "Needs re-translation", note which language needs re-translation and why: "The English transcript needs retranslation due to poor grammar and…"

General Content Cataloged?

This has a simple box that is checked if it has been done, and is left unchecked if it has not yet been done. It is used to keep track of videos that have been adequately cataloged and those which have not. That way staff can easily locate titles that require further cataloging. It should only be checked if the basic range of fields have been adequately filled out - title, caption, description, performers and place/time of recording.

THL Classification Cataloged?

This has a simple box that is checked if it has been done, and is left unchecked if it has not yet been done. This is the same as the preceding, but records whether the thematic classification has been used - its default is "no".

Quality Cataloged?

This has a simple box that is checked if it has been done, and is left unchecked if it has not yet been done. This is the same as the preceding, but records whether the various fields pertaining to the title's quality have been used - its default is "no".

Technical Metadata Cataloged?

This has a simple box that is checked if it has been done, and is left unchecked if it has not yet been done. This is the same as the preceding, but records whether the technical metadata has been documented - its default is "no".

Specific Content Cataloged?

This has a simple box that is checked if it has been done, and is left unchecked if it has not yet been done. This is the same as the preceding, but records whether the specific content cataloging fields have been done in terms of the language specifics - its default is "no".

Note: Again, your work will not be saved unless you click the green "Submit" tab or the "Submit" button at the bottom of the Workflow page.

H. Title Actions

This area allows one to perform various actions on a title other than managing its cataloging record. One can upload new transcripts and media, as well as classify the title into a collection, or even delete it entirely.

((Need account of these Apple scripts for batch processing - where they are, how to invoke them, and what they do. Media data importer: for hinting fast start streaming reference completed. UNKNOWN NOTE))

Collections

Associated Transcripts

Associated Medias (NOTHING UNDER THESE THREE)

I. Collection Management

One of the keystones of our audio-video and image resources is the classification of individual titles into, and presentation as, collections. (Need to add to manual an account of how to administer collections.)

J. Workflow Management Tactics

The searching interface allows one to specify whether one wants to see titles only with videos, only with transcriptions, only with translations and so forth. In this way the searching can be used to locate all titles with video but no transcriptions; or find all transcriptions without translations and so forth.

At present, it is possible to upload non-XML transcripts. These can be included in searches by clicking on the "include non-xml transcripts" button. When you get the search results, you can immediately spot the ones with associated non-xml transcripts since they will lack the "View Transcript" button, whereas the ones with XML transcripts will include it.

K. Searching

For two overall selection buttons, 'Media Titles' and 'Physical Media', there is one text box with three radial buttons: Title, ID, and Keywords. For example, by typing a number into the field, and then pressing the radial 'ID' and then the button 'Physical Media,' one can pull up the record of the physical tape number entered. To do a search for the title number, you enter the number, press 'ID' and then hit 'Media Titles' to recover the specific title. For keyword searches, type in the word, hit 'Keyword' and then 'Media Titles' to search the Titles, their captions, descriptions, recording situation, credits and workflow notes for keywords. For physical media, keywords searches are on the tape's label, caption, title, workflow note, description and credits.

L. Play and View

Once you have search results, you have the title of the media, a short caption, links to see the catalog entry, links to download options for the media and transcript for offline use, and finally the option to view the transcript online or play the media online.

By choosing "play", the video will open, and to the left the corresponding transcript (if available) will open as well. The transcript window will also have a link to download the transcript for offline use.

Provided for unrestricted use by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library